Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Talks on Sufism
Talks given from 27/08/77 am to 10/09/77 am
English Discourse series
15 Chapters
Year published:
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #1
Chapter title: Seven Valleys
27 August 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7708270
ShortTitle:
SUFIS201
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 97 mins
THERE WAS ONCE A WOMAN WHO ABANDONED THE RELIGION IN
WHICH SHE HAD BEEN BROUGHT UP. SHE LEFT THE RANKS OF THE
ATHEISTS TOO, AND JOINED ANOTHER FAITH. THEN SHE BECAME
CONVINCED OF THE TRUTH OF YET ANOTHER. EACH TIME SHE
CHANGED HER BELIEFS, SHE IMAGINED THAT SHE HAD GAINED
SOMETHING, BUT NOT QUITE ENOUGH. EACH TIME SHE ENTERED A NEW
FOLD SHE WAS WELCOMED, AND HER RECRUITMENT WAS REGARDED
AS A GOOD THING, AND A SIGN OF HER SANITY AND ENLIGHTENMENT.
HER INWARD STATE, HOWEVER, WAS ONE OF CONFUSION. AT LENGTH,
SHE HEARD OF A CERTAIN CELEBRATED TEACHER, IMAM JAFAR SADIK,
AND SHE WENT TO SEE HIM.
AFTER HE HAD LISTENED TO HER PROTESTATIONS AND IDEAS, HE SAID,
'RETURN TO YOUR HOME, I SHALL SEND YOU MY DECISION IN A
MESSAGE.'
SOON AFTERWARDS THE WOMAN FOUND A DISCIPLE OF THE SHEIK AT
THE DOOR. IN HIS HAND WAS A PACKET FROM THE MASTER. SHE
OPENED IT, AND SAW THAT IT CONTAINED A GLASS BOTTLE, HALF FULL
WITH THREE LAYERS OF PACKED SAND -- BLACK, RED AND WHITE -HELD DOWN BY A WAD OF COTTON. ON THE OUTSIDE WAS WRITTEN:
'REMOVE THE COTTON AND SHAKE THE BOTTLE TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE
LIKE.'
SHE TOOK THE WADDING OUT AND SHOOK THE SAND IN THE BOTTLE.
THE DIFFERENT COLOURED GRAINS OF SAND MIXED TOGETHER, AND
ALL THAT SHE WAS LEFT WITH WAS A MASS OF GREYISH SAND.
MAN is a paradox. And man is the only animal, the only being, that is paradoxical -that is man's uniqueness. Man's special being is his innermost paradox. All other
animals are non-paradoxical.
A tree is a tree, and a dog is a dog, but man is never in a state of isness. He is always
becoming, growing. Man is always surpassing himself; that is his paradox. And it is at
his very core of being. It is not accidental, it is very fundamental. Once you
understand this paradox you have your first glimpse about human-ness -- what man is.
Man is always a project, a becoming. His being consists of becoming -- this is the
paradox. He is always between that which he was and that which he is going to be. He
is always between his past and future -- a bridge hanging between two eternities, the
past and the future. He is a surpassing, a continuous surpassing. Man is never content
with that which he is; he is trying to go beyond, always trying to go beyond.
Whatsoever he is doing, all his effort is basically how to become something more,
something higher, something better.
Man is a progress, a wayfarer, a pilgrim -- and his life is a pilgrimage, a non-ending
pilgrimage, that goes on and on. A dog is born, a tree is born.... The tree is born with
all its tree-ness and the dog is born with all its dog-ness. Man is not a given fact; man
is born only with a possibility, with a potential. Man is born as a blank, as a
nothingness; nothing is written.
All other beings have a certain essence, a certain soul. In man it is just the reverse. His
existence comes first and then he starts seeking for his essence. In other animals
essence comes first, then existence. They already bring a built-in programme; they
never grow, they remain the same. That's why they look so innocent, so unworried, so
non-tense. Look into the eyes of a cow -- how peaceful, calm, tranquil she is. There is
no anxiety no anguish, no clouds. Look into the eyes of a man. They are always
cloudy. They always have anguish, there is always trembling: the trembling of.
'Whether I am going to make it or not?' -- the trembling of, 'Whether I will be able to
find myself or not?' -- the trembling of, 'Whether I will be fulfilled or remain
unfulfilled?'
The animals are at ease, relaxed; man is a tension. This is his glory and this is his
anguish too. This is his dignity and this is his problem too. It is his glory because he is
capable of creating himself -- he is a god. And it is his anguish because the possibility
is always there that he may fail, he may not be able to create himself. Who knows? It
is glory because of freedom -- he has not been programmed. He is the only animal
who remains without a programme. He has not been given a map, he has not been
ordered.
Man is the only being who is uncommanded. with no orders. He comes into existence
empty and then he starts groping for his being. Then he starts groping and creating
and searching. Man is an adventure.
But with the adventure is uncertainty, insecurity, failure, fear. One can always go
wrong. There is more possibility of going wrong, less possibility of being right. There
are a thousand and one ways -- which one is the right one? You are always anxious.
And whatsoever you choose you choose with uncertainty because you can never be
certain whether this path will lead to your goal or will end in a cul-de-sac somewhere
-- whether it will reach anywhere or will just end in a desert.
Man's glory is his freedom: that he can create himself, that he can be himself, that
nothing is forced on him, that he is open-ended. And man's misery is because he
cannot be certain, can never be certain that he is on the right path, that whatsoever he
is doing is meaningful or not.
Man is the only animal who goes mad. He has problems to face, to solve, to grow
beyond. This is the first thing I would like you to understand.
There was a great Sufi Master -- one of the greatest in all the ages -- Al-Ghazzali. He
says: 'On the path of human growth from man to God -- from man the potential to
man the actual, from possibility to reality -- there are seven valleys.' These seven
valleys are of immense importance. Try to understand them because you will have to
pass through those seven valleys. Everybody has to pass through those seven valleys.
If you understand rightly what to do with a valley you will be able to go beyond it,
and you will attain to a peak -- because each valley is surrounded by mountains. If
you can pass through the valley, if you don't get entangled in the valley, if you don't
get lost in the valley, if you don't become too attached to the valley, if you remain
aloof, detached, a witness, and if you keep on remembering that this is not your home,
that you are a stranger here, and you go on remembering that the peak has to be
reached, and you don't forget the peak -- you will reach to the peak. With each valley
crossed there is great celebration.
But after each valley you have to enter another valley. This goes on. There are seven
valleys. Once you have reached the seventh then there are no more. Then man has
attained to his being, he is no longer paradoxical. There is no tension, no anguish.
This is what in the past we have called Buddhahood. This is what Christians call the
state of being a Christ. This is what Jainas call Jinahood -- becoming victorious. There
are many names, but the basic idea is that unless man becomes God he remains in
anxiety. And to become God these seven valleys have to be crossed.
And each valley has its own allurements. It is very, very possible that you may get
attached to something and you will not be able to leave the valley. You have to leave it
if you want to enter the second valley. And after each valley there is a peak, a great
mountain peak. After each valley there is jubilation and the jubilation goes on
becoming more and more intense. And then finally, in the seventh valley, you attain to
the cosmic orgasm -- you disperse. Then only God is.
Listen to these seven valleys and try to understand them. And don't think Al-Ghazzali
is talking about something philosophical. Sufis are not interested in philosophy at all.
They are very practical people. If they say something they mean it. If they say
something, it is said for the seeker. It is not said for the curious ones, not for
intellectuals, but for those who are on the path, those who are really working hard to
have a glimpse of the truth. It is for the seekers.
The first valley.... The first valley is called the valley of knowledge.
Naturally, knowledge has to be the first because man starts by knowing. No other
animal has knowledge; only man knows, only man collects knowledge. Only man
writes, reads, talks. Only man has language, scriptures, theories. So knowledge has to
be the first valley.
The negative part of the valley is that you can become knowledgeable, you can get
hooked on knowledge. You can forget the real purpose of knowing and you can
become attached to knowledge itself. Then you will be accumulating more and more
knowledge and you can go on for lives together accumulating knowledge. You will
become a great scholar, a pundit, but you will not become a knower.
The way of the knower is utterly different from the way of knowledge.
There are two things when knowledge happens: the content of knowledge -- you
know something -- and the consciousness, the mirror, you who knows. If you become
too attached to the content of knowledge rather than to the capacity of knowing, you
will be lost in the valley. That part which can make you entangled, hooked, attached, I
call negative.
If you become knowledgeable then you are lost; you cannot cross the first valley. And
the more knowledge you have, the more confused you will become -- because there is
no way to decide what is true. Everything that you hear, if rightly put before you,
logically placed before you, will look right. There is no other way for you to decide;
there is no criterion. That's why it goes on happening. You go to one Master and you
hear him, and he looks right. Then you go to another Master and you hear him, and he
looks right. You read one book and it looks right; you read another book -- maybe just
the opposite -- and that too has its logic, and it looks right. There is no way to decide
what is right. And if you go on accumulating you will go on accumulating
contradictions -- opposite statements. And there are millions of standpoints and sooner
or later you will become just a crowd of many philosophies and systems. That is not
going to help. That will become the greatest hindrance.
So the first thing is that in the valley of knowledge one has to remain alert that one
has to be emphatically concerned with the capacity of knowing -- not with the object,
not with the content. One should emphasise witnessing, one should become more and
more alert and aware, then one becomes a knower. Not by knowing many things but
just by becoming more aware, one becomes really a knower.
The path of knowledge has nothing to do with scriptures. opinions, systems, beliefs. It
has something to do with the capacity to know -- you can know. You have this
immense energy of being conscious. So be concerned with the container, the
consciousness, and don't be concerned with the content.
Don't be concerned with the known, be concerned with the knower. Knowledge is a
double-arrowed phenomenon. One arrow points to the known, another arrow points to
the knower. If you go on looking to the known you will be lost in the valley. If you
start looking to the knower you cannot be lost, you will be able to transcend the valley.
And once you transcend the valley of knowledge there is great, great joy -- because
you have understood something very essential in you, something that is going to
remain to the very end, something that is very fundamental: the capacity to know, the
capacity to be conscious.
So if you look at the knower, if you become more alert about the knower, you have
used the positive.
The second valley is called the valley of repentance.
When you start looking at who you are, naturally great repentance arises. Because of
all that you have done wrong, all that you have done and should not have done. you
start feeling repentance. So a great peak comes with consciousness -- but suddenly,
with consciousness, conscience arises. Remember, the conscience that you have is not
the true conscience. It is a pseudo-coin; it is given by the society.
People have told you what is right and what is wrong; what is moral, what is immoral.
You don't know exactly what is moral or what is immoral. But after crossing the first
valley you will be able to know exactly what is right and what is wrong. And then
suddenly you will see what wrong you have done -- how many people you have been
hurting, how sadistic you have been with others, how masochistic you have been with
yourself, how destructive, violent, aggressive, angry, jealous, you have been up to
now. All that will come to your vision. That is a natural by-product of becoming
conscious -- conscience arises.
This conscience has nothing to do with the ordinary conscience that you have -- that is
borrowed. So you can have it and still it does not hurt; it does not give pain so real
that you can be transformed through it. You only know so-so what is right, and you go
on doing the wrong, you go on doing whatsoever you want to do. Your knowledge of
the right does not create any difference in you. You know that anger is bad but you
remain angry. On the one hand you know that anger is bad, on the other hand there is
no problem, you continue to be angry. On the one hand you know that possessiveness
is not good, and on the other hand you go on hoarding, you go on possessing -- not
only things but you even start possessing persons. You possess your wife, your
husband, your children -- as if they are things, as if they can be possessed. You
destroy through your possessiveness, and you know it is wrong.
This borrowed conscience does not help, it simply burdens you. With the first valley
crossed, your own conscience arises. Now you know exactly what is wrong and it
becomes impossible to do otherwise. This is the point where the Socratic dictum
becomes meaningful -- that 'Knowledge is virtue'.
Now the negative part of the valley of repentance.... The negative part is that you may
become too worried about the guilt concerning the past -- that you have done this
wrong and that wrong, and you have been doing millions of wrongs. You have been
unconscious here for so long that if you start counting all of that, it will create a kind
of morbidness. You will become so guilty that, rather than growing. you will fall into
great darkness.
So if guilt arises and you become morbid and you become too troubled by the past,
you will remain in the second valley. You will not be able to surpass it. If the past
becomes too important, then naturally you will be continuously crying and weeping
and beating your chest and saying, 'What wrong I have been doing!'
The positive part is that you should become concerned with the future, not with the
past. Yes, you have noted that you have been wrong, but that was natural because you
were unconscious. So there is no need to feel guilty. How could one be right when one
was unconscious? You have taken note of it -- that your whole past has been wrong -but it does not create a burden on your chest. You take note of it. That taking note
helps you because you will not be able to do it again -- you are finished with it. You
feel sad that you have been hurting so many people in so many ways, but you feel
joyous also, simultaneously, because now it will not happen any more. You are freed
from past and guilt! You don't become concerned about it, you become concerned
about the future, the new opening.
Now you have your own conscience; now the future is going to be totally different,
qualitatively different, radically different. You will be thrilled with the adventure.
Now you have your own conscience, and your conscience will never allow you to do
wrong again. It is not that you will have to control -- when the real conscience has
arisen there is no need to control, no need to discipline. The right becomes the natural
thing. Then the easy is the right and the right is the easy.
In fact, once the conscience has arisen in you, if you want to do wrong you will have
to make great effort to do it. And even then there is not much possibility of
succeeding.
Without your own conscience you have to make much effort to be right, and even then
you don't succeed. So one is thrilled. One feels sad for the past but one is no longer
burdened, because the past is no more. That is the positive part -- that one should feel
that the transformation has happened, that the blessing has arrived, that God has given
you the greatest gift of conscience. Now your life will move in a totally new
dimension, on a new track.
This is where real morality is born, virtue, SHEELA.
The third valley.... The third valley is called the valley of stumbling blocks.
Once the conscience has arisen you will now be able to see how many blocks exist.
You have eyes to see how many hindrances there are. There ate walls upon walls.
There are doors too but they are few and far between. You will be able to see all the
stumbling blocks.
Al-Ghazzali says there are four: one, the tempting world -- the world of things. They
are very fascinating. Lust is created. Why have all the world religions been saying that
one has to go beyond the temptation of the world? -- because if you are tempted too
much by the world, and you hanker too much for the worldly things, you will not have
enough energy to desire God. Your desire will be wasted on things.
A man who wants to have a big house, a big balance in the bank, great power in the
world, and prestige, puts all his desiring, invests all his desiring in the world. Nothing
is left to seek God.
Things are not bad in themselves. Sufis are not against things, remember. Sufis say
that things are good in themselves. but one who has started seeking for God and the
ultimate truth cannot afford them. You have a certain quality and certain quantity of
energy. The whole energy has to be put into one desire. All the desires have to become
one desire, only then can God be attained, only then can you surpass this third valley.
Ordinarily we have many desires. the religious person is one who has only one desire,
whose all other desires have fallen into one big desire -- just as small rivers, small
streams, small tributaries fall and become the big Ganges -- like that. A religious
person is one whose all other desires have become one desire: he desires only God, he
desires only transcendence.
So the first is the tempting world; the second is people -- attachments to people.
Sufis are again, remember, not against people, but they say that one should not
become attached to people. Otherwise that very attachment will become a hindrance,
a stumbling block to God. Be with your woman and be with your man, be with your
children, be with your friends, but remember that we are all strangers here and our
togetherness is just accidental. We are travellers, we have met on the road. For a few
days maybe we will be together -- feel thankful for that -- but sooner or later, ways
part. Your wife dies, she goes on her own way, and you will never know where. Or,
your wife falls in love with somebody else, and your ways part. Or you fall in love
with somebody else. Or your son becomes grown-up and he takes his life into his own
hands and moves away from you -- every son has to move away from the parents.
We are together on this road for only a few days an(:l our being together is just
accidental. It is not going to be forever. So be with people, be lovingly with people, be
compassionately with people, but don't become attached -- otherwise your attachment
will not allow you freedom enough to go beyond.
So the second is people, attachments. The third Al-Ghazzali calls Satan, and the fourth,
the ego.
By Satan the mind is meant -- the mind that you have accumulated in the past.
Although conscience has arisen, although you have become more conscious than ever,
the mechanism of the mind is still there lurking by the side. It will lurk a little longer
still. It has been with you for so long that it cannot leave you suddenly. It takes time.
And it waits and watches -- if some opportunity is there it will immediately jump and
take possession of you. It has been your master, you have functioned as a slave. The
mind cannot accept that you have become a master so suddenly. It takes time.
The mind is a mechanism, it is always there. For the seeker, the mind is the Devil. All
the stories about the Devil are nothing but about the mind. The Devil -- or Satan, as
Sufis call the Devil -- is just a mythological name for the mind.
When the Devil tempts Jesus, do you think some Devil is standing there outside?
Don't be foolish! There is no Devil standing outside. The temptation is coming from
Jesus' own mind. The mind says, 'Now that you have become so miraculously
powerful, why bother about other things? Why not have the kingdom of the whole
world? You can have it! It is just within your reach. You can possess the whole world,
you have so much power. You are so spiritually high. Your SIDDHIS are released.
You can have all the money and all the prestige that you want. Why bother about God
and religion? Use this possibility!' Mind is tempting.
And when Jesus says, 'Don't come in my way. Go away!' he is not talking to some
Devil outside. He is simply saying to the mind, 'Please don't come in my way. I am no
longer concerned with the desires that you have, I am no longer concerned with the
projects that you have, I am on a totally different journey. You know nothing about it,
you keep quiet.'
And the fourth is ego -- one of the greatest stumbling blocks on the path of seeking.
When you start becoming a little conscious, when your conscience arises, and you
start seeing the stumbling blocks, a great ego -- from nowhere -- suddenly takes
possession of you: 'I have become a saint, a sage. I am no longer ordinary, I am
extraordinary!' And the problem is that you ARE extraordinary! It is true! So the ego
can prove it. That is the greatest problem, because the ego is not just talking nonsense.
It is sensible. It is exactly so!
Still one has to be alert that if you get entangled with the ego, with the idea that 'I am
extraordinary' then you will always remain in the third valley. You will never be able
to reach the fourth, and the fourth will bring more flowers and higher peaks and
greater joys -- and you will miss.
This is the place where SIDDHIS -- spiritual powers -- become the most hindering
thing.
The negative part is to start fighting with these stumbling blocks. If you start fighting,
you will be lost in the valley. There is no need to fight. Don t create enmity. Just
understanding is enough.
Fighting means repression. You can repress the ego, you can repress your attachment
to people, you can repress your lust for things, and you can repress your Satan, your
mind, but the repressed will remain, and you will not be able to enter into the fourth
valley.
Only those who have no repressions enter the fourth valley. So don't start repressing.
The positive part is: take the challenge -- that the ego is challenging you. Don't take it
as an enmity, take it rather as a challenge to go beyond. Don't fight with it; understand
it. Look deep into it. Look into the mechanism of it: how it functions, .how this new
ego is arising in you, how this mind goes on playing games with you, how you
become attached to people, how you become attached to things. Look into the how of
it with cool observation, with no antagonism. If you become antagonistic in any way,
then you are caught. If you become indulgent, you are caught. If you become
antagonistic, you are caught. And these two are the easiest things. People know only
two things: either they know how to become friends or they know how to become the
enemy. That is the only ordinary understanding possible.
The third thing will help. Be watchful, witnessing; neither inimical nor friendly. Be
indifferent. Just see that they are there, because if you take any feeling attitude -- for
or against -- the feelings will become bondages. Feeling means that you become
attached. Remember, you are as attached to your enemies as you are attached to your
friends. If your enemy dies, you will miss him as much as you will miss your friend -sometimes even more, because he was giving some meaning to your life. Fighting
with him, you were enjoying a trip. Now he is no more. The ego that was being
fulfilled by fighting with him will never be fulfilled again. You will have to find a
new enemy.
So don't make enemies and don't make friends. Just see. Be very, very scientifically
observant. That is the positive thing to do. Explore what ego is, and explore joyously.
Explore what lust is, and explore joyously.
Then comes the fourth valley: the valley of tribulations.
Entry into the unconscious happens in the fourth valley. Up to now you were confined
to the world of the conscious. Now, for the first time, you will enter into the deeper
realms of your being, the unconscious, the darker part, the night part. Up to now you
were in the day part. It was easier. Now things will become more difficult. The higher
you go, the more you have to pay. With each higher step the journey becomes more
arduous and the fall becomes more dangerous. And one has to be more alert. On each
step more awareness will be needed, because you will be moving on higher planes.
The valley of tribulations is the entry into the unconscious. It is the entry into what
Christian mystics have called 'the dark night of the soul'. It is the entry into the mad
world that you are hiding behind yourself. It is very weird, it is very bizarre. Up to the
third a man can proceed without a Master, but not beyond the third. Up to the third
one can go on one's own. With the fourth a Master is a must.
And when I am saying that one can go up to the third on one's own, I don't mean that
one has to go and I don't mean that everybody will be able to go. I am simply talking
of a theoretical possibility. Up to the third it is theoretically possible that a man can go
without a Master. But with the fourth, the Master becomes an absolute necessity -because now you will be sinking into darkness. You don't yet have any light of your
own that you can use in that darkness. Somebody else's light will be needed -somebody who has gone into that dark night and for whom it has become possible to
see in that darkness.
The negative part of the valley of tribulations is doubt -- great doubt will arise! You
don't know what doubt is you don't know yet! All that you think is doubt is nothing
but scepticism, it is not doubt. Doubt is an altogether different phenomenon.
Somebody says, 'God is'; you say, 'I doubt.' You don't doubt. How can you doubt? You
are only being sceptical. You are only saying, 'I don't know.' Rather than saying 'I
don't know' you are using a very strong word 'doubt'. How can you doubt? Doubt is
possible when you are facing a reality.
For example, you have never seen a ghost. And you say, 'I doubt the existence of
ghosts.' That is not doubt, that is just being sceptical. You are simply saying, 'I have
never come across one so how can I believe. I doubt.' That is not doubt. Doubt will be
when one day, passing through the cemetery, you suddenly come across a ghost! Then
your whole being will be shaken. Then you will be for the first time in a state where
doubt arises: whether that which you are facing is true or an hallucination.
Doubt is very existential; scepticism is intellectual. Scepticism is only in the mind;
doubt enters into your very being, your whole body-mind-soul. Your totality is
shaken.
In this dark night of the soul, doubt arises. Doubt about God -- because you were
seeking for more light and this is happening, just the opposite. You were seeking for
more bliss and you have fallen into the dark night. A great doubt arises about whether
you are going right, about whether this seeking is worth it -- because you were
seeking for gold, you were seeking for great light and great enlightenment and nirvana
and samadhi and satori, and instead of satori and samadhi, this dark night has
overwhelmed you. Even those lights that used to be there are there no more. Even
those certainties that used to be there are there no more.
You used to know certain things; now you know nothing. You had some security.
Even that is gone. The very earth underneath your feet has slipped away; you are
drowning. Then doubt arises. Then you start feeling that maybe this whole religious
trip is nonsense, maybe there is no God, maybe you were tooling yourself, maybe you
have chosen something absurd. It was better to live in the world, to be of the world. It
was better to have many more things: to enjoy power, to enjoy sex, to enjoy money.
What have I done? I have lost all and this is the result!
To every seeker this moment comes. And if this doubt arises, then naturally one starts
defending oneself against the darkness. One creates an armour around oneself against
the darkness, the invading darkness. One has to protect oneself. If you do that you will
be thrown back again to the conscious part of your mind. You will miss the mystery of
darkness. Light is beautiful, but nothing compared with darkness. Darkness is more
beautiful, more cooling, more deep. Darkness has depth; light is shallow. And unless
you are able to welcome darkness you will not be able to welcome death.
So the first teaching is that you have to accept, welcome, relax. This darkness is the
first glimpse of God. It is dark, but later on you will understand that it was not dark. It
was really that for the first time you had opened your eyes towards God and it was too
dazzling, that's why it looked dark. It was not dark; darkness was your interpretation.
Look at the sun for a few seconds and soon you will be surrounded by darkness. It is
too much; you cannot bear it. A man can go blind by looking at the sun too long. Look
at the sun for a few seconds and then go into your house and you will find the whole
house full of darkness. Just a moment before you were there and you could see
everything. Now you cannot see anything; you will stumble over things.
That it is dark is interpretation. But it is natural. Later on when you have transcended
the valley then you will be able to look back and see the reality. Only a Master can
hold your hand in this dark night of the soul and make you confident, can say to you
and convince you -- 'Don't be worried. It only looks dark, it is not dark. It is the first
meeting with God. You are coming closer.'
There are three things to be understood: sleep, death and samadhi.
Sleep is like death. In the East we say it is the small death, the tiny death. We die
every night and disappear into the dark night. Then comes death -- a bigger death than
sleep. The body disappears but the mind remains and is born again. Then comes the
ultimate death -- samadhi -- where body disappears and mind disappears and only the
innermost core, consciousness, remains. That is the ultimate death.
In the fourth valley you encounter the first glimpse of how the ultimate death is going
to happen to you. If you reject it, if you defend yourself against it, if you create an
armour, you will be thrown back to the third valley, and you will miss. And once you
have missed the fourth you will always remain afraid to go again into it.
My observation about people is that people who have entered into the fourth valley
some time in their past lives, and have become too frightened and escaped from it, are
the people who are always afraid of anything deeper. Love -- and they will be afraid.
Orgasm -- and they will be afraid. Friendship -- and only so far; beyond that they will
be afraid. Discipleship -- and they will be afraid. Surrender -- and they will be afraid.
Prayer -- they will be afraid. They will be afraid of all those things that can again
bring them to that fourth valley. They may not be consciously aware of why they are
afraid.
The fourth valley is very important because it is just in the middle. There are seven
valleys, the fourth is just in the middle. Three are on this side and three are on that
side. The fourth is immensely significant; it is the bridge. The Master is needed on
this bridge because you pass from the known to the unknown, from the finite to the
infinite, from the trivial to the profound.
The positive part is trust, surrender; the negative part is doubt, defence. The Master
starts teaching you about trust and surrender from the very beginning so that by and
by it becomes your climate -- because it will be needed when you enter into the fourth
valley.
Sometimes people come to me and they say, 'Why can't we be here without
surrendering? Why can't we meditate and listen to you and be benefitted as much as
we want? What is the point of surrendering?'
They don't understand. In the beginning it may not look very relevant. Why? For what?
You can listen to me without surrendering and you can meditate here without
surrendering. You can pass through growth groups without surrendering. It seems
perfectly okay. Surrendering does not seem to be needed at all. But you don't know
what is going to happen in the future. For that, preparation has to be made right now.
You cannot wait for that moment. If preparation has not been made before, then you
will miss. Then when the right time comes, when your house is on fire and you have
not dug the well yet, and you start digging it, by the time it is ready, the house will be
gone.
One has to dig the well before the house catches fire! So right now it may not seem
relevant. I can understand. Logically it is not relevant right now. Listening to me,
what surrender is needed? Meditating, what surrender is needed? But when you enter
the fourth valley, surrender will be needed. And you cannot suddenly learn the ways
of surrender. You have to go on learning them before the need arises. Surrender has to
become your climate.
The fifth valley... the thundering valley.
In the fifth valley you enter death. In the fourth you entered sleep, darkness; in the
fifth you enter death. Or, if you like to use modern terminology for it: in the fourth
you enter the personal unconscious; in the fifth you enter the collective unconscious.
Great fear arises because you are losing your individuality.
In the fourth you were losing light, day, but you were there. In the fifth you are losing
yourself -- you don't feel as if you are, you are dispersing, you are melting. Your
feeling that 'I am a centre' starts becoming vague, cloudy.
With entry into death, entry into the collective unconscious, great fear arises, great
anguish is felt -- the greatest anguish that you will ever feel -- because there comes the
question: to be or not to be? You are disappearing; your whole being will hanker to be.
You would like to go back to the fourth. It was dark, but at least it was good -- you
were there. Now, the darkness has become more dense. Not only that, you are
disappearing into it. Soon not even a trace will be left of you.
The negative part is clinging to the self. That's why great teachers -- Buddha or
Jalaludin Rumi -- insist -- 'Remember, no-self, anatta.' Sufis call it fana -- one
disappears. And one should prepare for this disappearance, one should be ready -- not
only ready but in a deep welcome. It is going to bring great joy, because all your
misery is contained in your ego. The very idea that 'I am' is your ignorance. The very
idea that 'I am' creates all kinds of anxieties and problems for you. The ego is the hell.
Jean-Paul Sartre has said: 'Hell is other people.' That is not right. The hell is YOU, the
hell is the ego! If other people feel like the hell, they feel like the hell also because of
the ego -- because they hurt it continuously. They go on pushing your buttons.
Because you have this wound of the ego everybody seems to hurt you. It is just your
idea that 'I am special' and when somebody does not recognise it, it gives pain. When
you don't have any idea of being special -- what Zen people call 'to become ordinary'
-- if you become ordinary, then this valley can be crossed. If you become nobody, then
this valley can easily be crossed.
So the negative part is clinging to the self and the positive part is relaxing into no-self,
into nothingness -- being ready to die, willingly, joyously, voluntarily.
Then comes the sixth valley -- the abysmal valley.
One disappears. In the fifth, one was disappearing; in the sixth, one is no more. One is
a memory of the past, one disappears. In the fifth, one was entering into death; in the
sixth, death has happened, one has died, one is no more. That's why it is called the
'abysmal valley'. It is the most painful, because it is the sixth -- the last but one. One
passes into the greatest pain of not being, of nothingness. One cannot believe it -because in a certain sense one is, and in a certain sense one is no more. The paradox
has come to the ultimate peak. One is and one is not. One can see one's own corpse -one is dead -- and still one knows that one is seeing, so one must be in some way, in
some sense. All the past ideas of the self have become irrelevant. A new idea of self
arises.
Death happens, one disappears. This is what Christians call crucifixion. Nothingness
has arrived; one is just an empty sky. Hindus call it samadhi, Zen people call it satori.
And the negative part complains. It will be good to remind you. At the crucifixion
Jesus shows both attitudes. First he complains. He looks at the sky and says, 'Why?
Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me?' This is the negative part.
He is complaining. He is dying and no help is arriving. He is on the cross -- and deep
down somewhere there must have been a lurking desire that God's hand will arrive
and everything will be okay and the cross will become a crown and he will descend
with new glory. Somewhere there must have been a lurking desire in the very
unconscious core of his mind -- he may not have been aware of it. He had waited long
enough, the last point had come. He had carried his cross on the hill, he had suffered
all kinds of humiliation, but he had waited, patiently waited -- waited for this moment.
Now his hands have been nailed. Now it is a question of seconds and he will be gone.
Now there is no time left to wait any more and the help has not come and God is not
visible. Hence the cry, 'Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me?'
This is the negative part, natural even to a man like Jesus.
If you think of your past and then complain -- 'I have been doing all that was asked of
me to do, all that you have ordered me to do. I have followed you blindly, and this is
the result? This is the fulfilment...?'
The positive part is deep gratitude. With the second, the positive part, one forgets the
past, one looks into the future and one trusts. The last test has come, the ultimate test,
and one feels grateful that 'If this is your will, let it be done.' That's what Jesus did. He
showed both the attitudes. First he showed the negative -- which is very human. I love
Jesus because he showed that. He was very human. That's why he used to say again
and again, 'I am the Son of Man.' As many times as he says 'I am the Son of God' he
says 'I am the Son of Man.'
He was eternity come into time; he was the beyond come into the world. He belonged
to both the world and the beyond. That's how each Master belongs -- to both. One foot
is in this world, the other foot is in the other. And on the crucifixion day, in that
moment when all is disappearing, Jesus shows both attitudes. First, he shows the
attitude of being 'Son of Man'. He says, 'Why? Why have you abandoned me? I have
hoped, I have prayed, I have lived a life of virtue -- and this is the fulfilment? This is
the reward?'
But then he immediately understands that he is missing the point. If this is the will of
God then this has to be so. He surrenders. The positive is gratitude, surrender.
With 'Why have you abandoned me?' he recognises his complaint, his humanity. He
must have laughed in that moment, he must have seen his limitation as a human being,
and he dropped it. Immediately he says, his immediate statement is, 'Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done.' Gratitude has arisen, surrender is total. Now there is nothing
more.
Jesus dies as Son of God. And the gap is very, very tiny. In just a split second he
changed from being man into God. The moment complaint changes into trust, you
change from human into God. He becomes prayer. 'Thy will be done.' Now he is no
more. Now he has no will of his own.
And then comes the seventh valley, which is the last, the ultimate -- the valley of
hymns, the valley of celebration.
Rebirth, resurrection, happens in the seventh valley. That is the meaning of the
Christian idea of resurrection -- that Christ is reborn, reborn in the body of glory,
reborn in the body of light, reborn in the body divine. Now there is no positive, no
negative. Now there is no duality. One is ONE. Unity has arisen -- what Hindus call
ADWAITA. The dual has disappeared. One has come home.
The valley of the hymns.... Al-Ghazzali has given it a beautiful name. Now there is
nothing left -- just a song, a song of celebration, praise of God, utter joy. This is what
I call the ultimate orgasm.
If I were going to name this valley I would call it the valley of total orgasm. Only
celebration is left. One has flowered, bloomed. The fragrance is released. Now there
is nowhere to go. Man has become that for which he was seeking, searching,
struggling.
Man is a paradox. He is not what he is. He is that which he is not yet. But the day you
realise the ultimate, you will have a laugh arising in your very heart, because then you
will know that you were always this. It was just unknown to you. The future was
contained in you, just hidden. You had to discover it. These seven valleys are the
valleys of discovery.
This is a beautiful map; this is the Sufi map.
Now this story.
THERE WAS ONCE A WOMAN WHO ABANDONED THE RELIGION IN
WHICH SHE HAD BEEN BROUGHT UP. SHE LEFT THE RANKS OF THE
ATHEISTS TOO, AND JOINED ANOTHER FAITH. THEN SHE BECAME
CONVINCED OF THE TRUTH OF YET ANOTHER. EACH TIME SHE
CHANGED HER BELIEFS. SHE IMAGINED THAT SHE HAD GAINED
SOMETHING, BUT NOT QUITE ENOUGH. EACH TIME SHE ENTERED A NEW
FOLD SHE WAS WELCOMED, AND HER RECRUITMENT WAS REGARDED
AS A GOOD THING, AND A SIGN OF HER SANITY AND ENLIGHTENMENT.
HER INWARD STATE, HOWEVER, WAS ONE OF CONFUSION.
This woman was lost in the first valley -- the valley of knowledge -- and she got
hooked to the negative. She became knowledgeable. She went to this school and to
that; she went to this teacher and that; she studied this doctrine and that; and each time
she started something new she would be thrilled. It would be a kind of honeymoon.
And sooner or later she would be fed up with it and she would start moving and
searching again.
The total result was that she gathered much knowledge of diverse nature, much
knowledge of contradictory systems. All those systems work, remember -- never
forget it! Each system works, but it works in its purity only. If you mix it with many
systems it will never work. It will be like you take a few parts from a Mercedes-Benz
and a few parts from a Rolls Royce and a few parts from a Chevrolet and a few parts
from a Ford and a few parts from a truck and a few parts from somewhere else, and
you put them together. They are all useful, but this mechanism that you have created
out of them is not going to work. A part that was functioning in a certain mechanism
will not be able to function with other kinds of parts. Each system is an organic whole.
It is complete in itself. If you listen to Mahavira and find a few beautiful thoughts, and
then you go to Buddha and listen and find a few beautiful thoughts. and you make a
concoction -- a KEDGEREE -- you will become confused. Those fragments that you
have taken from Mahavira were beautiful, but they belonged to a certain system; they
were organic parts of a certain whole. They can function only in that whole, they
cannot function with anything Buddhist. And the Buddhist fragments are beautiful,
but only in a Buddhist system.
Now this woman became more and more confused. And this woman is very
representative of many people -- many people here also -- who have been going to
this teacher and that, to this system and that, and go on gathering. And they think that
just by gathering a few wise statements they are going to become wise. They are utter
fools! They will simply go mad.
Each system is perfect and works. But don't mix it with anything else; let it function
on its own.
This woman ABANDONED THE RELIGION IN WHICH SHE HAD BEEN
BROUGHT UP. Then she became an atheist -- she abandoned religion itself. Then she
JOINED ANOTHER FAITH -- she abandoned atheism too. And THEN SHE
BECAME CONVINCED OF THE TRUTH OF YET ANOTHER. EACH TIME SHE
CHANGED HER BELIEFS, SHE IMAGINED THAT SHE HAD GAINED
SOMETHING, BUT NOT QUITE ENOUGH.
She was just collecting fragments, wise sayings. These wise sayings may look wise,
may be useful to the system from which they have been taken, but they become
useless the moment you take them out.
It is said of a Hindu mystic that he went begging. And a woman looked at his eyes....
He had beautiful eyes. Saints have beautiful eyes, nobody can have eyes like a saint -the depth, the joy, the feeling that one has arrived, the relaxation, the rest, the
compassion. The woman became immensely attracted to the eyes. She started
following the mystic.
One day the mystic asked, 'What is the matter? Why do you go on following me? I
don't see any religious search in you.'
The woman confessed. She said, 'In fact, I don't have anything to do with religion. I
have simply become attracted to your eyes; you have beautiful eyes.'
The mystic said, 'You go home. Tomorrow I will come to your home.'
She was very happy. She thought that the mystic was also interested in her. She took a
bath, perfumed her body, decorated everything with flowers, cleaned the whole house.
With great expectation and hope she was waiting. And then came the mystic. She
could not believe it! He had taken his eyes out and he had brought them on a plate.
And he said, 'You keep them, otherwise you have to follow me unnecessarily. You
keep these eyes. You can have them. I don't have much use for them because
whatsoever I needed to see I have seen. And it doesn't look good that you go on
following me just because of these eyes. You keep them.'
But are these eyes, eyes any more? They are not. They were eyes only when they
were in the organic unity of the body. Now they are nothing. Now you can look into
them and you will not find any depth. You can look into them and you will not find
any compassion or any love. There is nothing!. They are just ordinary pebbles,
meaningless. The meaning is always in the totality.
So never think that you can become wise by collecting wise sayings. That is not
possible. In this age many people have tried that. In India, Mahatma Gandhi was
trying it -- take a few things from the Koran and a few things from the Bible and a
few things from the. Gita and a few things from the Dhammapada, and collect them
and make a concoction. That concoction he used to call the synthesis of all religions.
This is just meaningless. You cannot create a synthesis of all religions. It will be like
you cut off one of my hands and a leg of Krishnamurti and the head of Meher Baba,
and put them all together and call it synthesis of all religions. It will not be of any use.
It will stink! It will be ugly. That's what Mahatma Gandhi has done.
No synthesis is possible, and no synthesis is needed! No synthesis is needed between
a rose-bush and the lotus -- they are perfectly beautiful as they are. Lotus is lotus, rose
is rose, Islam is Islam, Hinduism is Hinduism, Zen is Zen, Sufism is Sufism. And
Judaism is Judaism, and Jainism is Jainism. They are perfectly beautiful as they are.
They are not lacking anything.
Each system is complete.
Now this woman gathered something from everywhere. And each time she went to a
new school.... Of course, whenever a new recruit comes, the people feel very good. It
proves that they are right. This woman has been to that Master and that Master and
that Master -- and she has left, abandoned all. And now she has come to THEIR
Master! So their Master must be the highest Master, the greatest Master. So they all
welcomed her and they recruited her and regarded it AS A GOOD THING AND A
SIGN OF SANITY AND ENLIGHTENMENT.
It was not sanity; she was going insane. And it was not enlightenment; she was getting
farther away every day. But to know that, she had to come to a real Master.
HER INWARD STATE, HOWEVER, WAS ONE OF CONFUSION. AT LENGTH,
SHE HEARD OF A CERTAIN CELEBRATED TEACHER, IMAM JAFAR
SADIK....
Only a real Master can be shocking. All others who are just pseudo are never shocking.
How can they shock? You are their customers, they have to persuade you -- they
cannot shock you. They have to adjust themselves to you. In fact, they always say
what you want to hear, they never say that which will be shocking -- otherwise you
may leave them.
I know. I have been in contact with millions of people in this country. And because I
went on shocking them, by and by they left. They were not here to listen to the truth,
they were here to listen to THEIR truth -- and they had nothing. they had no truth at
all. If they had had truth, there would have been no need to come to listen to me in the
first place. But they thought that they had the truth. If they go to a pseudo-Master he
will say the thing that they want to hear. He will accommodate himself to them. And
whenever a Master accommodates himself to you, beware -- he is no Master! Because
if he is accommodating himself to you, how can he transform you? He is your
follower. He is trying to console you. He cannot be a transforming medium.
Transformation is painful. A Master has to work with a hammer in his hand.
This woman came to Imam Jafar Sadik. When she came to him....
AFTER HE LISTENED TO HER PROTESTATIONS AND IDEAS, HE SAID,
'RETURN TO YOUR HOME, I SHALL SEND YOU MY DECISION IN A
MESSAGE.'
That's the way of the Sufis. They are very, very experimental people, and very
practical and down to earth. Rather than saying anything, he says, 'I will send a
message. You go home.' He must have seen the reality of the woman -- that she was
already too confused. Saying anything to her would be confusing her more. Right now
nothing could be taught to her. Right now she did not need to learn any more, she had
already learned enough. She needed unlearning. So he didn't say anything.
SOON AFTERWARDS THE WOMAN FOUND A DISCIPLE OF THE SHEIK AT
THE DOOR. IN HIS HAND WAS A PACKET FROM HIS MASTER. SHE
OPENED IT, AND SAW THAT IT CONTAINED A GLASS BOTTLE, HALF FULL
WITH THREE LAYERS OF PACKED SAND -- BLACK, RED AND WHITE -HELD DOWN BY A WAD OF COTTON. ON THE OUTSIDE WAS WRITTEN:
'REMOVE THE COTTON AND SHAKE THE BOTTLE TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE
LIKE.'
SHE TOOK THE WADDING OUT AND SHOOK THE SAND IN THE BOTTLE.
THE DIFFERENT COLOURED GRAINS OF SAND MIXED TOGETHER, AND
ALL THAT SHE WAS LEFT WITH WAS A MASS OF GREYISH SAND.
Sadik is trying to show her -- 'You have become just a confusion. You have become
mixed with all kinds of colours, and the result is that you are just grey. You don't have
any colour.'
And these three layers of sands are very significant.
Sufis say there are three ways to God: knowledge, love, action -- just as Hindus say:
DHYAN MARGA, BHAKTI MARGA, KARMA MARGA. This is because man has
three faculties: the faculty of cognition, the faculty of feeling, and the faculty of action.
The body is the source of action; the heart is the source of feeling, love, devotion; and
the intellect is the sourCe of cognition, knowledge, knowing.
Because of these three faculties in man, there are three doors. Through these three
doors man can enter into the divine. Action is black because it is the lowest. Feeling,
love, is white because it is the highest. And between the two is the intellect -- red. The
intellect is painted red because it is very aggressive, bloody; it has the colour of blood.
The heart is painted white by Sufis because it is innocent, pure. White is the symbol
of renunciation.
You can ask the physicists. The physicists say that the colour white means that all the
rays of the sun have been turned back. The colour black means that all the rays of the
sun have been absorbed. The red means that only the red is turned back; the green
means that only the green is turned back. Each ray of light has seven colours. If a
certain thing absorbs all the colours, it becomes black. If a certain thing renounces all
the colours, it becomes white. So black is indulgence, white is renunciation.
Love is sacrifice, love is renunciation. When you love you are ready to give all. By
giving, you become white. Intellect is very aggressive, always in a fighting mood -argumentative; hence the colour red. Action is the lowest -- body-rooted. But all these
three doors are there.
There were three layers of sand in the bottle; the bottle was half full. And the Master
said, 'Remove the wad, shake the bottle and see what happens. That is your situation.
There is something from the people who talk about love and live in love; and
something from the people who talk about knowledge and live through intelligence;
and something about the people who talk about action and live through action -- and
they have all become mixed in you. and now you don't have any colour any more. You
are just greyish -- a confusion.'
This must have been a great shock to the woman -- because everywhere else she had
gone before she had been welcomed, and everywhere they had told her that now she
had become enlightened because she had chosen the right Master. Now she had come
to the right door. Now she had become sane. Up to now, wandering here and there,
she had been mad. She was recruited with great welcome. But Sadik hammered her.
He did not even feel it right to say anything to her. He sent a message -- a very
practical device to show her her state of consciousness. She was lost in the first valley.
She could not go beyond the first valley.
The story is of great significance. Many of you are lost in the first valley. It you want
to go to the second, you will have to drop all the rubbish that you have gathered in
your mind. All kinds of thoughts you will have to drop. You will have to unlearn.
Unlearning is the positive path. Through unlearning you will have a new attitude
arising in you -- you will be less concerned with the known, you will be more
concerned with the knower. And once you have dropped all your knowledge it will be
very clear to you whether it is action that is going to be your door, or it is love, or it is
knowledge. Right now you are a greyish mass.
Meditate over this story, and meditate over the seven valleys. Let me repeat it again:
man is a paradox. Man is the only being who tries to surpass himself. Man is the only
being who has a great longing to transcend. This is man's glory, because this is God's
gift to man; and this is man's anguish too.
Now it depends on you whether you will make it into a blessing or into a curse.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #2
Chapter title: Diamonds Regained
28 August 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7708280
ShortTitle:
SUFIS202
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 88 mins
The first question:
Question 1
I HAVE OFTEN THOUGHT THAT IF CHILDREN WERE RAISED IN A FREE
AND LOVING ENVIRONMENT RATHER THAN THE INSANE SOCIETY THAT
WE GREW UP IN, THEY WOULD ALL MATURE INTO FREE, LOVING,
ENLIGHTENED BEINGS. BUT IF THIS WERE SO, MANY OF THE PRIMITIVE
SOCIETIES WOULD BE OVERFLOWING WITH ENLIGHTENED BEINGS.
WHY IS THIS NOT SO?
The first thing: before you can get to yourself, you will have to lose yourself. The
child is born in innocence, and if the child never loses his innocence he will never
become enlightened. Enlightenment means that you have lost it and regained it -paradise lost and regained. It is part of enlightenment that first you must lose it.
It is like a fish who has always lived in the ocean -- it is impossible for the fish to
know the ocean. It is very obvious to those who are standing outside but it is not so
obvious to the fish. It has been born into it, it is part of it, it is like a wave. To know
the ocean, a little separation is needed, a little distance is needed. The fish will remain
unaware of the ocean and will die. But take the fish out, let the fish out, throw the fish
on the bank, on the hot sand, and there will be pain and there will be suffering -- but
in that suffering the fish will know for the first time that she has been living in the
ocean. And for the first time a great thirst, a great desire will come to go back to the
ocean. And she will make efforts to go back.
And if she succeeds and reaches back into the ocean there will be great joy. She had
been in the ocean forever but there had been no joy. But now there will be joy, now
she will be thrilled, blessed! Now each moment will be a kind of ecstasy. And it is the
old, the same ocean she was born in. What difference has happened? A new
consciousness has arisen. The fish is no longer innocent, the fish is enlightened.
In primitive societies you will not find Buddhas, you will not find Christs. Primitive
societies live in the ocean. Innocence you will find, a childlike innocence you will
find, an animal-like innocence you will find -- but you will not find a Buddha. A
Buddha is one who has recognised his innocence. This recognition makes the
difference. But to recognise, you first have to lose.
I can understand. Your question is very relevant. If this insane society drives you into
neurotic paths, then the logical mind will say then why are the primitives not all
enlightened? This society drives you into madness but through that very driving you
start moving away from your innermost core. Suffering arises, and a great desire to
come back home arises. That desire is what religion is all about -- to come back home.
What the society has done you will have to undo. Religion is against the society, the
antidote to society. That's why when religion becomes part of society it is no longer
religion. It becomes Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Judaism. Then it is no longer
religion. Religion is basically against society. It has to be -- because society takes you
away from yourself and religion brings you back to your own being. It destroys,
demolishes, all that the society has done. But before it can demolish, the society has to
do something.
So Buddhas exist only in a very cultured society. Enlightened people exist only in a
very insane society. It will look paradoxical, but this is how it is.
If you look from this standpoint then you will be rebellious but you will not be against
the society. There is a difference. You will be very compassionate, even towards all
this insanity that is created by the society. It is part of the game. It makes
enlightenment possible.
Take another example. A man has lived always in health. He does not know what a
fever is; he does not know what a headache is. He does not know any kind of illness.
Can you imagine him feeling his health? It is not possible. In the very nature of things
he will never know what health is. And he is healthy. So to know that one is healthy
and the well-being of health, health alone is not enough. One can be healthy, perfectly
healthy, and one may not be aware of it -- because the awareness comes from the
opposite. The awareness comes from a dialectical process. The thesis must be
opposed by the antithesis. Health must fall into illness, then you become aware of
what you have lost. And if you can regain it there is great joy.
There is a Sufi story....
A very rich man was searching for bliss, for truth -- or whatsoever name you want to
give to his search. He had much money and he was ready to offer any amount of this
money to anybody who could give him a key. He went from one teacher to another,
but nobody could supply him with happiness. He was ready to pay any price; that was
not a problem at all.
He was carrying a big load of diamonds in a bag and he would put the bag before a
Master and he would say, 'Now take this, but tell me the secret of bliss.'
Then he came to a Sufi teacher. The Sufi was sitting under a tree. The rich man came
on his horse with his famous bag -- it had become famous all over the country -- and
he put the bag before the Master and said, 'I am in search of happiness and I am ready
to pay anything. Here are many diamonds -- crores of rupees worth. You can take
them, but give me happiness.'
And the Sufi Master did something. Sufis are people who do. Rather than answering,
they create a situation. The Master simply jumped upon the bag and ran away!
For a second, the rich man could not believe what was happening. Such a famous
Master! And then he suddenly realised what had happened. The Master had gone with
his diamonds! So he started shouting and running after the Master. But in that village
the Master knew every street every nook and corner. And the rich man was running
after him and shouting, 'I have been robbed! My whole life's treasure has been robbed!
This is a thief. Catch hold of him. This is no longer a Master. This is a fraud. This man
is a cheat.' And he was shouting and running. But he could not get hold of the Master
because the Master knew the streets of the town.
The whole town gathered. The whole town started collecting around the rich man and
they said, 'Don't be worried.' But he said, 'Why should I not be worried? I have been
completely destroyed. All that I had was in the bag and that man has escaped with it.'
And he was crying and he was as miserable as one can be.
Then the whole crowd and the rich man went in search and found the Master sitting
back under his tree with the bag in the place where the rich man had put it. And his
horse was standing there. The rich man came and jumped on his bag. Holding the bag
close to his heart he gave a great sigh of relief and he said, 'Thank God!'
And the Sufi Master said, 'Are you happy or not? This is the key to happiness. Are
you happy or not? Tell me.' And the man said, 'Really, I have never been so happy!'
In a primitive society people are innocent. They are like Adam and Eve in the Garden
of Eden. They have not yet tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge. A civilised person
is Adam expelled. He has tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He is no longer
innocent, he is corrupted.
But Adam cannot become Christ. That is not possible. You first have to fall to rise,
you have to lose to get. Adam prepares the way for Christ. By being expelled from
innocence, a new possibility arises -- he can re-enter again, he can re-enter the
innocence. This second innocence -- what Hindus call 'second birth', DWIJ -- this
second birth, this second innocence, is qualitatively different from the first. The first
was ignorant innocence. It was not aware of itself. It was not luminous, it was dark.
The second kind of innoCenCe is luminous. A light burns in it. It is aware of itself. It
is not only innocence, it is innocence plus awareness.
So in a way even this insane society does something beautiful to you -- it takes away
your bag of diamonds. It creates the possibility of being happy. If you are stuck in it
then something has gone wrong, otherwise there is nothing wrong. Going away is part
of coming back. Go as far away as possible and coming back will be as beautiful as
can be. Go as distant from God as you can. The farther you go, the more ecstatic the
coming back will be.
So in a primitive society enlightened people don't exist. They exist only in an insane
society. That is the first thing.
The second thing: even a primitive society is not really absolutely primitive. In fact,
no society can be absolutely primitive. Society as such means that civilisation has
entered, even if it is primitive. It may be a primitive civilisation, maybe it does not
have cars and roads and aeroplanes -- that does not matter. That does not make a
society a society.
A society is made out of rules, regulations, taboos, inhibitions. Even in a primitive
society they are there. they are crude, gross, as primitive as the society is primitive.
but they are there. No society can exist without rules. Society means rules. No society
can exist without taboos. Society means taboos. No society can exist without
repressions. Society means repressions. Society means that the individual has to ht
with the mass. In that very fitting, the individual loses his innocence. He becomes
corrupted.
So the second thing to remember is that even a primitive society is a society, so there
is some possibility of being enlightened. But the more the society becomes complex,
the more there is a possibility of becoming enlightened. The more there is a
possibility of becoming insane, the more there is a possibility of becoming
enlightened.
Now it will depend on you how you use the situation. A civilised society creates a
great possibility. You can get obsessed, you can get stuck, you can become frozen -that is your choice. Otherwise, the more complex the society is, the closer you are to
becoming enlightened. You can use that opportunity.
Buddha was born in a very complex Hindu society. That was the peak of Indian
civilisation, the golden age. The society was very complex, very sophisticated.
Buddha was born into it. And all the twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS of the Jainas,
Buddha, and all the AVATARAS of the Hindus -- Krishna, Ram and others -- they all
came from the very sophisticated layer of the society. They were all aristocrats. They
didn't come from the low strata. They were all kings or sons of kings. Why? Because
at that peak the insanity drives you really the whole distance away from God. And
then the turning becomes possible.
I am not saying that the turning is going to happen inevitably -- I am not saying that.
It will depend on you. If you become aware of the insanity that you are living in, you
will start turning. If you don't become aware of the insanity and you remain asleep in
it, you may continue to remain insane.
It is not an accident that the East is no longer much interested in religion. The East is
so poor now and society has fallen so low; it is no longer sophisticated, it is no longer
aristocratic. Its problems are very physical, down-to-earth. It cannot think of spiritual
problems.
It is no accident that the West is becoming more and more interested in religion. The
Americans particularly are becoming very deeply involved with religion -- because
now America is at the peak of civilisation, of sophistication, of luxury, of affluence.
Exactly the same thing happened two thousand and five hun-dred years ago in India,
when India was the golden bird -- just as America is today. America is modern India.
The sun is going to rise in the West. The East is deserted. The East is a potential field
for communism, not for religion. Eastern countries are by and by turning communist.
Communism can only be the religion of the East -- it is the lowest kind of religion.
So the American mind, particularly the cultured American mind, is interested in
Buddha, not in Marx; is interested in Krishna, not in Marx. But the Chinese mind is
interested in Marx, Lenin, Mao. The Indian mind is interested in Gandhi, in Marx, in
socialism, in communism. When you are hungry, your religion can only be
communism. When your bodily needs are fulfilled, when your mental needs are
fulfilled, then there is no way other than to be religious. Then you will start seeking
meditation, satori, samadhi.
The second question:
Question 2
BEFORE COMING TO POONA I THOUGHT I KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT
HELPING. NOW I FEEL I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HELPING. THE MOST I
CAN DO IS BE PRESENT WITH A CLIENT AND FOLLOW MY INSTINCTS AT
THAT MOMENT. IT IS A VERY SCARY PLACE.
Now you are in fact beginning to be a helper, a therapist. When you start losing that
ego of being a therapist, feeling starts flowing through you. That ego is an obstruction.
A real therapist does not know that he is a therapist, he is just a medium for God to
flow through.
And I can understand why you are feeling scared -- because all your expertise and all
your past has existed around a subtle ego, around 'I'. Now that seems to be relevant no
more. When the past seems to be relevant no more, one feels scared. One is losing
knowledgeability and that was your support, that was the ground on which you were
standing. You used to know this and that, you used to know how to help, what to do,
what was needed... now all that is disappearing. Now you will not know what to do
and you will not know the right answer to every question.
But now, for the first time, if you remain available to the patient, your client, the right
answer will come through you. It will vibrate through you. It will not be your answer,
that is true, it will be no longer your answer -- it will be God's response through you.
That's my whole work here. I am preparing a new kind of therapist, a totally new kind
of therapist, whose function is not to do something to the patient, but just to be
available. Their presence will be a healing presence, miracles will happen through
them, but they will not be able to say, 'I have done this.' God will be doing the miracle,
or the unknown, or the whole. And for the first time you will be really a help, a great
help.
But for a few days, a few months, a few years.... It depends. If you relax into this,
surrender into this, this hesitation will disappear soon. If you don't surrender, if you
go on resisting, then it will take many months or many years. Or maybe you may
succeed in resisting and it may disappear again. Then you will miss a great
opportunity -- a door was opening but you didn't allow it to open.
My observation is that when a musician becomes a real musician, he throws away all
musical instruments. He need not have them. Now the music arises in his innermost
core; it is not produced by any instruments. When an archer becomes a real archer, he
throws away his bow and arrows. There is no need for them. When a healer really
becomes a healer, he forgets that he is a healer.
A man of knowing becomes completely innocent, unbur-dened of knowledge. And the
process is.... I am not saying that you need not have any training -- no, not at all. I am
not saying that you need not know anything about psychoanalysis, psychiatry,
medicine -- I am not saying that. I am saying that you have to know all that and one
day you have to forget it too. I am not saying that suddenly a man who does not know
anything about archery can become an archer just by surrendering, no. First one needs
to know -- that is the first part. One has to learn. Then the second part, and the higher
part, is that when you have learned all, forget the learning.
In Zen they say that if a person wants to become a great painter he should first learn
painting for twelve years -- day in, day out. He should go on learning all that is
possible about colours, painting, canvases, techniques, and after twelve years he
should throw away his canvas, his brush, his colours, and for twelve years he should
forget all about painting. He should never touch it, never talk about it. And then one
day he should start painting again. Now the painting will have something original
about it. All that is needed as technique is there, but it is no more in the conscious
mind, it is no more a part of the ego. It has gone deep into the unconscious. Those
twelve years of training, learning, have become part of his blood and bones.
Then for twelve years he has simply forgotten about it. So from the conscious mind
all has disappeared. If you ask him anything, he will not be able to say anything. He
will not be able to talk about painting any more. Now he will paint like an innocent
child who does not know anything, and yet in his painting will be all the expertise of
the technician. Now two great things will be meeting in him: the innocence of the
child and the knowledgeability of the expert. When these two things meet, there is
great creativity.
What happens ordinarily? One can become just an expert, a technician... then you can
paint, and you can paint perfectly, but something will be missing. The soul will be
missing. The painting will be perfect. Nobody will be able to find any fault, that is
true, but that is not enough for a painting -- that nobody can find any fault. That is not
enough. It is needed, but it is not enough. It is necessary, but not enough. Something
more is needed. Just to say about a painting that there is no fault in it, is not praise.
If a poet brings a poem and you say, 'Yes, it is perfectly as it should be. There are no
mistakes, no linguistic mistakes, no grammatical mistakes, no mistakes in the rhythm
-- everything is perfectly okay,' this is not praising it. It may be dead. It has to be dead.
Life is not there. It is a corpse. Everything seems to be perfect but something very
essential is missing.
I have heard about a madman who escaped from his mad asylum. He was a professor
of philosophy -- and a very clever man. When he escaped from the mad asylum,
naturally he started thinking about how to avoid detection -- because they would be
searching for him immediately. All over the country a search would be made. He was
a dangerous madman and the police would be looking for him.
So he thought it over. What to do? How not to be caught again? And he found a very,
very perfect solution. He knew why people had started to think that he was mad -- it
was because he used to make such absurd statements. So he thought, 'I should do one
thing. I should never make any absurd statements. Secondly, I should make only
statements which are absolutely certain, with which nobody can find any fault. I will
say only things which are proved by science and I will not say a single thing which
cannot be proved. Unimpeachable, impeccable will be my statements.'
So he searched in his memory. He was a great scholar, a very famous professor. He
remembered a few statements which were perfect. Nobody could find fault with them.
For example: 'The earth is round. Two plus two is four' -- things like that. That was
his whole conversation. You could say anything and he would say, 'The earth is round.
Two plus two is four.' He would say things like that. He would only say things like
that.
Within three days he was caught. He was very much sur-prised. Why? When he was
caught he told the superintendent, 'But I am puzzled. Not a single statement have I
made which can be proved wrong. Can you prove that the earth is not round? What
was wrong in it? How could they detect that I am mad?'
There was nothing wrong in it -- obviously, certainly. The statement was perfectly true
-- the earth is round and two plus two is equal to four. But it is irrelevant! Somebody
is talking about his woman and you say, 'The earth is round.' It is irrelevant. It is
meaningless.
A technician goes on doing the right things but they have no meaning. He can make a
beautiful painting but something is missing -- meaning is missing. You cannot find
any fault with his colour, you cannot find any fault with his drawing -- you cannot
find any fault. If you have to find fault you will be not able to. But that is not the point.
Where is the meaning? Where is the significance? Something is missing. The total is
missing. It is a mechanical phenomenon. The organic unity is missing. That organic
unity comes out of innocence, not out of expertise.
So there are painters who are only technicians. Because of these technicians there was
a great revolt in the world of painting. People revolted. They stopped going to the art
colleges, they stopped learning painting, and they said, 'We will be free painters.' So
they started free painting. Now their painting may be original, it may have some
significance, but they are incapable of painting it on the canvas. They don't know how
to mix colours, they don't know how to draw. The idea in their mind may be great, but
they have no expertise to bring to the canvas. That's what has happened to modern
painting. Looking at a modern painting it is very puzzling. You don't know what you
are looking at. The man seems to be original but he seems to know nothing about
painting.
I have heard....
Once a rich man came to Picasso. He wanted two of his paintings and only one
painting was ready. And the man was ready to give him any amount of money. So
Picasso said, 'You wait. I will bring two paintings.' He went in and he cut the painting
in two.
Now if you cut Picasso's painting in two, or even in four, it does not make any
difference -- because it is just a mad jumble of colours. And he sold that one painting
as two.
Another story about Picasso....
His paintings were being exhibited and the critics were surrounding one painting
especially. His paintings were strange, but that was the strangest he had ever done.
And they were really full of praise -- like anything. And then came Picasso and he
said, 'Who has put it upside-down?' The painting was upside-down!
Or another story....
A rich woman asked Picasso to do her portrait. He did it. He took many months. And
he was going to get millions of dollars out of it.
Then the woman came and she said, 'Everything is okay, but I don't like the nose.' So
Picasso said, 'Okay. Come after seven days.'
And then he was sitting before his painting, very much worried. And the woman who
used to live with him in those days asked, 'Why are you so worried? I have never seen
you so worried.' He said, 'The problem is -- where have I painted the nose? I cannot
find it.'
Somebody can be very technically expert -- then the thing goes dead -- and somebody
can be very innocently, childishly original but then, then again it can't be a real
painting. Zen people are right. A painting needs both the innocence of a child and
expertise -- both together. Then a great synthesis arises.
One has to learn and then to forget -- that's my whole approach here. My approach
about therapy is the same. This is my approach about everything -- that first you have
to know, and then you have to forget all that you know. Then the knowing goes into
your blood. It becomes an unconscious milieu around you. It goes on functioning
from the unconscious. And in the conscious you remain very, very innocent, original.
Then there is great joy.
You ask me: BEFORE COMING TO POONA I THOUGHT I KNEW SOMETHING
ABOUT HELPING. NOW I FEEL I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HELPING. Good!
That's how it should be. Now the real helping will start.
THE MOST I CAN DO IS TO BE PRESENT WITH A CLIENT AND FOLLOW MY
INSTINCTS AT THAT MOMENT. That word 'instinct' will change soon and you will
start feeling intUitions instead of instincts. I can understand why you have used the
word 'instincts' -- because you don't yet know about the phenomenon of intuition. Let
me explain it to you.
When the body functions spontaneously, that is called instinct. When the soul
functions spontaneously, that is called intuition. They are alike and yet far away from
each other. Instinct is of the body -- the gross; and intuition is of the soul -- the subtle.
And between the two is the mind, the expert, which never functions spontaneously. So
there is no corresponding word for the psychological realm. For the physical, instinct;
for the spiritual, intuition -- but between the two is the mind. Mind means knowledge.
Knowledge can never be spontaneous. So there is no corresponding word like
intuition or instinct for the psychological realm.
I can understand why you have used the particular word 'instinct'. In the beginning it
will feel like that because you are not aware of your soul yet. But good, let it be
instinct. Instinct is far better than intellect. Instinct is deeper than intellect and
intuition is higher than intellect. Both are beyond the intellect, and both are good.
First one becomes alert about instinct, then by and by one will become alert about
intuition. And then there will be a kind of meeting of these two. Then both words
disappear; then there is totality, TATHATA. Then one functions as a total organic unit.
That is the moment when you become an instrument of God.
The third question:
Question 3
ONE OF THE KEY WORDS TO MY AND OTHERS' EXPERIENCES HERE IS
'ENERGY'. I CAN FEEL IT -- SOMETIMES MORE, SOMETIMES LESS -- AND I
ALSO FEEL THAT OPENING MYSELF MORE TO EXPERIENCING IT, IS
LETTING IT DO THE JOB OF CHANGE. STILL IT PUZZLES ME AS IT IS A
TOTALLY NEW CONCEPT TO ME AND I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE
ABOUT IT. IS IT AN INNER OR AN OUTER PHENOMENON, OR BOTH? CAN
ONE MISUSE IT? PLEASE EXPLAIN.
The question is from Sucheta. She has stumbled upon one thing which is very
significant -- energy. That's what we are producing here.
To those who come as spectators, it remains unavailable. Those who come just to see
what is happening will not be able to see it. And this is the real happening. But it is
invisible. You have to become a participant, only then will you know about it.
There are two ways of knowing a thing. One is that of the spectator. You go to the
movie, you sit in your chair and you see whatsoever goes on moving on the screen.
You are a spectator. This is one of the problems for the modern mind. The modern
mind has become a spectator. Somebody is dancing -- you are watching. People are
glued to their chairs before their TV sets for five, six, seven hours. The average in
America is five hours. It is as if the TV set is their god and they are worshipping.
They are just glued. They cannot get up, they are almost paralysed -- just watching,
just looking. Somebody is making love -- people are watching. Somebody is wrestling
-- people are watching. Somebody is dancing -- people are watching. Somebody is
singing -- people are listening. People have become spectators.
And when you become a spectator, much is lost. Your life becomes very superficial -because God is not available through being a spectator, God is available only through
participation. If you want to know what dance is, dance. Don't be a spectator. Don t go
on looking. You don't know what dance is if you only see a dancer. You just know the
movements of the dancer, you don't know how it feels from within the dancer -- how
it feels to the dancer, what joy, what ecstasy, what is happening in the innermost core
of the dancer. Great things are happening. If there is a real dancer, great things are
happening.
When Nijinsky used to dance, sometimes he would make leaps which were physically
impossible. Scientists could not figure it out. That big a leap was not possible because
of gravitation. And another phenomenon was that when he jumped, coming back to
the earth he would fall as if he was a weightless feather. So slowly! It had never
happened before. It couldn't happen. It should not happen. But it WAS happening.
And they were puzzled.
And it did not always happen. If Nijinsky wanted it to happen, it would not happen.
The moment he would will it, he would miss. If somebody had come just to
photograph him, he would not be able to make that kind of leap. And he would feel
very humiliated. It was nothing that he could do. It only used to happen when he used
to disappear in his dance. Then by and by he became more aware of it -- that when he
was not, when the dancer disappeared in the dance, then it happened. Then suddenly
gravitation no longer functioned; it was as if another kind of law started working -levitation. It was as if he started being pulled upwards.
You cannot know it from the outside. You can see Nijinsky jumping, you can watch -but you don't know what is happening inside him. Inside him something like a satori
was happening. The West was not aware of these phenomena, that s why nobody told
him that this was a satori. Had he been to the East -- in a Sufi country, in a Zen
country, or a Taoist country -- it would have been immediately recognised. And great
possibilities would have opened.
Just the reverse happened in the West. Nijinsky went mad because he became so
disoriented. He could not figure out what it was. He became so afraid of it -- as if he
was being possessed by some evil spirit or something. That which could have become
the door to God became a door to a madhouse. He needed a Master in that moment.
He needed one who had realised this inner phenomenon. The Master would have been
of great help. But he was not aware that he needed a Master; he was not aware that
anything religious was happening. He became disturbed. He became afraid of himself.
How can you see what is happening to Nijinsky? I am here. I am talking to you. You
can listen to my words but you can't see from where they are coming. You cannot see
my heart.
So one way is the way of the spectator. Another way is the way of the participant. Two
kinds of people come here. Spectators come; they miss the whole thing. The whole
thing looks like a crazy trip. What are people doing? What is happening to these
people? Why so much dancing? Why so much singing? Why so much crying and
weeping? What is happening to these people? What kind of meditation is this?
Spectators come, and they are puzzled. They cannot figure it out.
Only by being a participant will you know what is happening. And if you are a
participant then 'energy' will be the word that will become the most important -- that
is what is happening around here.
Sucheta is right. She has stumbled on the right thing. ONE OF THE KEY WORDS
TO ME AND TO OTHERS' EXPERIENCES HERE IS 'ENERGY'. I CAN FEEL IT
-- SOMETIMES MORE, SOMETIMES LESS -- AND I ALSO FEEL THAT
OPENING MYSELF MORE TO EXPERIENCING IT, IS LETTING IT DO THE
JOB OF CHANGE.
Perfectly true. You will feel it sometimes more and sometimes less, not because it is
sometimes more and sometimes less, but because you are sometimes more sensitive
and sometimes less sensitive. The energy is continuously flowing, the river is
continuously flowing -- it depends on your sensitivity how much you will be able to
feel it in a certain moment. It is not that sometimes the energy is here and sometimes
it disappears, it is here twenty-four hours. It is going to be here as long as I am here,
or, for those who are sensitive enough, it will be available after I am gone. It depends
on you.
So when it is flowing less, then watch -- you must have become a spectator. Then it is
flowing less. When it is flowing more, watch. You must be a participant -- then it is
flowing more. So keep it as a key. Whenever it is less, just become aware that you
must become more of a participant. You must have fallen into the trap of being a
spectator.
That's why I insist that while you are meditating, keep your eyes closed, have a
blindfold, so that you don't become spectators. Otherwise the tendency is there. It is
so ingrained. Your whole culture has prepared you to become spectators. So even if
meditation is happening to you, and you are moving into energy, suddenly the idea
arises, 'See what is happening to others.' And you miss. If you open your eyes, a great
change has happened: you have fallen from being a participant and you have become
a spectator. And this is not a small distance, it is as far away as earth and sky. And
then suddenly it is no longer flowing. You are no longer here. If you want to be here,
the only way to be here is to be a participant.
And if you are a participant, you need not do the job of change. The energy will do it.
Let me do it. Allow me. It will happen. All that is needed from your side is not to
resist. All that is needed from your side is openness, co-operation -- a loving
co-operation, not a fearful defence. And, yes, you need not bother about change. The
change happens very easily.
STILL IT PUZZLES ME. It will puzzle you in the beginning. The puzzling
phenomenon comes because you are no longer In control, you are no longer the
master of it. You cannot manage it, you cannot will it; it is beyond you, it is bigger
than you. That's why it puzzles you. We are always puzzled by the bigger because we
always want something which we can define, which we can hold in our hands, which
we can possess. Anything bigger than you puzzles you -- because the mind feels so
tiny. It falls short and cannot figure it out. And once the mind feels 'I cannot figure it
out' it starts freaking, it starts getting so frightened that it can start thinking of
escaping.
Many people escape from here. Once the energy takes possession of them and things
start happening.... And they always wanted them to happen -- this is how human mind
functions. They came here in the first place for something to happen. If it doesn't
happen, they are angry. If it starts happening, they are frightened. Fear and anger are
the same energy. Fear is negative anger and anger is positive fear. The difference is
only of positivity and negativity. And this is how people are working. If it doesn't
happen, they are angry -- as if I am not doing it to them. They are not co-operating,
that is the only thing. But they are angry at me -- as if I am doing it to others and not
to them. They go on writing letters to me. That something is happening to somebody
else, why is it not happening to them? -- as if I am responsible. It is not happening to
you because you are not co-operating.
And it cannot happen to you if you are expecting. Your very expectation is a barrier.
And it cannot happen to you if you are competitive, if you are thinking that it is
happening to your girlfriend or your boyfriend or somebody and it is not happening to
you. If you are competitive, it is not going to happen to you. All competition is out of
the ego. Then you are angry.
And if it happens, then you become frightened. Then you become so afraid that you
start thinking of where to go now and of how to escape from this place -- because
something is happening which is crazy. It is crazy -- crazy in the sense that you don't
have any idea of what it is, you don't have any mind to explain it, you don't have any
philosophy to make it clear to you.
STILL IT PUZZLES ME, Sucheta says, AS IT IS A TOTALLY NEW CONCEPT TO
ME. Right, it is a totally new phenomenon. Don't call it a concept. It is not a concept,
it is a reality. It is not an idea. This energy is not an idea. It is the most pregnant force
in the world. It is through this force that people are transformed. It is alchemical. It is
about this force that alchemists have been talking down the ages. It is this chemistry
that transforms the gross into the subtle, that transforms the iron into gold, that
changes the lower into higher, that transforms sex into prayer energy, that makes you
capable of moving into different planes, higher planes, higher plenitudes. It is not a
concept.
But I can understand what she means. she is saying that she has no philosophy to
figure it out. But there is no philosophy and I cannot supply it. Nobody has ever been
able to supply any philosophy to figure it out. It is so big; philosophies are so small.
Philosophies are in the mind of man and this is universal energy. Mind cannot contain
it. And you should not try to do that, otherwise the mind will come in and will disturb
your receptivity for it.
AND I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT. Forget. Knowing more about
it is not going to help; being more into it is going to help. And being more into it is the
only way to know more about it. Don't do the reverse.
Ordinarily our mind says, 'First know more about it, then go into it.' That seems to be
more clever. But it doesn't work. The mind says, 'First know, then go into it. Without
knowing, jumping into it is dangerous, can be dangerous. You may be lost. Or you
may not come back again. Who knows? Whether this is good or bad, divine or devil,
who knows? So first know everything about it.' But there is no way to know anything
about it without going into it. That is the danger, that is the risk, the gamble.
That's why I call sannyasins the gamblers. They are ready to go into the unknown
with me without any hitch or hesitation. I cannot give them any guarantee. It is not
possible in the very nature of things. A guaranteed truth is a lie. The truth cannot be
guaranteed. One has to go into it with a throbbing heart. One has to take the risk. The
danger is there. Either you will become enlightened or you will go mad -- that danger
is there.
That is why a Master is needed, and a great love for the Master is needed -- so you
can trust him. So that when things start going out of your hand, he can take them in
his hand. If you don't trust him, then madness is going to happen. So I never suggest
to anybody to go into this unknown without a Master.
I know that sometimes it happens that a person can go without a Master, but that
should be an exception, it should not be made a rule. We can forget about it. Yes, it
happens that once in a while a man escapes danger and reaches to truth without being
guided. But that should be thought of as accidental; one should not make an ideal of it.
It is far better, far happier, far more joyous and celebrating, to go with somebody who
knows the way, who has been on the way again and again.
Sufis say that if you want to ask the way to a certain peak, ask the man who comes
down and goes up every day. Ask the postman who goes to the mountain peak to
deliver the post -- who comes every day and goes every day. Ask the man who knows
the path so perfectly that he can go with a blindfold, he can go in darkness without
any light. Ask that man.
But I cannot give you any knowledge about it. There exists none. Experience is the
only way to know it. I can give you an invitation; I can tell Sucheta, 'Come along with
me. Drop your resistances -- ConsCious and unconscious. Drop your fears. And also
drop this mind which wants things to be explained.' There are things which cannot be
explained because there are things which are mysterious. And those are the real things.
That which can be explained is meaningless; it is trivial, it is mundane. All that is
beautiful, all that is true, all that is great, is beyond explanations. It is a mystery. You
have to go into it. You have to savour it.
AND I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT. It is good that you want to
know more about it but the way to know is to be more into it.
IS IT AN INNER OR AN OUTER PHENOMENON, OR BOTH? It is neither -because for energy there is no in nor out. In and out are our divisions created by the
ego. It is like your house. You say that this is inside my house and this is outside. Do
you think that the sky is divided between the inner and the outer because you have
made a small wall? The sky is not divided. The sky remains undivided, indivisible.
There is no in and no out. It is one sky. The sky that is inside your house is the same
sky that is outside your house. And there is no way to cut it into parts.
And so is energy. It is one vitality, it is one God, it is one life. All is one unto it. It is
neither lower nor higher, neither inner nor outer, neither material nor spiritual. All
divisions are egoistic. It knows no divisions.
IS IT AN INNER OR OUTER PHENOMENON, OR BOTH? CAN ONE MISUSE IT?
No, there is no possibility. You cannot misuse it because before you can get it, you
have to disappear. You get it only with the condition that you are not -- so who can
misuse it? If you are, you never get it. This is a built-in protection. Nobody can
misuse it -- because before you can get it, you have to disappear utterly. That is a
basic requirement. Nobody can misuse God. It is prohibited by its inner mechanism -because before you enter the shrine of God you have to disappear.
And once you are not, who is there to use or misuse? Forget the word 'misuse'. You
cannot even use it! It starts using you. You become just instrumental -- a passive
vehicle, a hollow bamboo. God starts flowing through you. When he starts singing,
you become a flute; otherwise you are a hollow bamboo, you remain a hollow
bamboo. All songs are his. He uses you. You cannot use, you cannot misuse, because
you are no more.
The fourth question:
Question 4
OSHO, WHY DO YOU GO ON SAYING, 'WHEN YOU FIND A MASTER,' WHEN
YOU ARE RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME?
The question is from Anand Vimoksha. I go on repeating it because although I may be
in front of you, you are not in front of me. And unless we both confront each other,
unless we are face-to-face, heart-to-heart, I will have to go on repeating it.
Vimoksha, I am in front of you, but where are you? You are not in front of me. You
are still hiding; you are still hiding in your cave. You are still afraid to come out and
confront me. It is a confrontation, it is an encounter. And I have to go on calling you,
'Come forth! Come out!' That's why I have to repeat again and again, 'When you find
a Master.'
The Master has found you but you have not yet found the Master. I have chosen you
but you have not yet chosen me, Vimoksha. It has to become your choice too -- then
there will be a meeting. And in that meeting will be a disappearance of me and you.
The fifth question:
Question 5
YOU SAY ONE SHOULD NOT FEEL GUILTY, BUT HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO
AVOID IT? THE SLIGHTEST NEGATIVE EMOTION OR QUALITY, IF TURNED
INWARDS, KILLS ONESELF; IF TURNED OUTWARDS, KILLS OTHERS. IT
SEEMS TO ME THAT UNLESS AND UNTIL ONE HAS FULLY REALISED THE
SPIRIT OR BECOME ENLIGHTENED THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A DEEP
EXISTENTIAL HUMILIATION.
The question is from Hannah.
First, there is no existential humiliation as such. There are only psychological
humiliations. And they are created by you.
Existence knows nothing of humiliation because existence knows nothing of the ego.
Have you ever seen a tree humiliated? Have you ever seen a rock humiliated? Have
you ever seen anybody except man humiliated?
Watch nature and you will be surprised. If two dogs are fighting, they don't start
fighting like human beings. They are not so foolish. They first show to each other how
much 'I am.' They bark, they jump, they show their chests, they show their teeth. They
simply show that this is 'I am.' What you are, you show, and the other shows, and then
it is decided -- because they are not foolish. There is no need to fight. Then it is
decided who is stronger. Then the one who is the weak one shows his back, puts his
tail between his legs and goes away.
But there is no humiliation. Remember, if you think that the one who is going away
with his tail between his legs is humiliated, you are wrong. You are bringing your
human mind in it. It is a simple decision. If I ask you which is bigger -- two or three?
-- and you say three, is two humiliated. Foolish! Just foolish! They are wise people,
these dogs. They have decided without any violence, without any conflict. Just by a
mock fight they have decided. What is the point of going into a real fight when it is
decided that one is weak? Of course the stronger will win, so why go into it?
The one who has left the field is not a coward, remember. He exposed his whole heart,
put everything on the table, was not hiding any card, not even a trump card. Seeing
that the other has all the great cards and he doesn't, it is finished. There is no need to
fight and there is no need to feel humiliated -- 'God has made him a bigger dog and
God has made me a smaller dog -- so it is finished.'
A man came to a Sufi Master and asked him, 'Why am I not like YOU?' And the Sufi
Master said, 'You puzzle me. I can ask the same thing -- "Why am I not like YOU?" -and become very humiliated. I am not like you either. God never makes two persons
alike. You are you, I am me.'
A man came to a Zen Master and asked the same thing, 'Why are YOU so pious, so
beautiful, so graceful? Why am I not like you?' And the Master said come outside.'
And he took him outside and he showed him two trees standing in his garden. One
was very big, whispering to the clouds; another was very small.
He said, 'Look, one is big and one is small, but I have never seen the smaller one
asking the bigger one, "Why am I not like you?" And I have lived here for many years.
There is no problem. The big is big; the small is small. The small is happy in being
small; the big is happy in being big. There is no comparison so there is no
humiliation.'
Hannah is an egoist. I remember many years ago when she took sannyas. It was not
much of a sannyas either. But I never say no. Just out of politeness I never say no.
Why should I say no? She took sannyas at Mount Abu -- it must be five or six years
ago. When I gave her a name.... I remember the name I gave her; it was one of the
most beautiful that we can give in India. I gave her the name 'Ganga'. That is the most
beautiful river, the most sacred to the Hindus. And on the sides of this river Ganga has
flowered all that has been beautiful in India. The Vedas were written there, the
Upanishads were sung there, Buddha talked there, Mahavira walked there. All the
twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS, Krishna and Ram and Buddha, and all the great
saints -- they all owe something to the Ganges, to Ganga.
Hannah immediately refused. She said, 'I don't like this name. My name, Hannah, is
beautiful.' Just out of politeness I said, 'Okay, I will keep your old name.' But that very
moment, she became closed to me and she has remained closed to me. Since then I
have not been able to make any contact. She refused me! I gave her sannyas, but she
refused me. Her own ego and her own name and her own past was too much.
Remember, it is the ego which feels humiliation, it is not existence. Existence has no
humiliation. The bigger the ego you have, the more humiliated you will feel. And
remember, the reason is your ego. Existence is completely unaware of any kind of
humiliation. The rose is not humiliated before the lotus because the lotus is so big.
And the marigold is not humiliated before the rose because the rose has such a
beautiful fragrance. Nobody is comparing. Nobody has any ego to compare. Nobody
is competing. Existence is pure silence as far as comparison is concerned. It is our
psychological cancer, the ego, which feels humiliation.
The second thing: You SAY ONE SHOULD NOT FEEL GUILTY, BUT HOW IS IT
POSSIBLE TO AVOID IT? THE SLIGHTEST NEGATIVE EMOTION OR
QUALITY, IF TURNED INWARDS, KILLS ONESELF; IF TURNED OUTWARDS,
KILLS OTHERS. There is no need to turn it anywhere, in or out. You can simply
watch it and it disappears, evaporates. It goes neither in nor out.
For example, anger has arisen in you. It is a negative poison. Now there are three
possibilities of response. Hannah mentions only two; she knows only two. Many
people know only two. One is to throw this anger, this fire and poison onto the other.
Then it is destructive. And naturally, after you have burned the other, wounded the
other, you will feel guilty. I can understand. You will feel foolish, you will feel stupid,
you will feel that you have done something wrong. You should not have done this.
Or the other possibility is that you don't throw the anger on the other, you turn it
inwards. Then you hurt yourself. Then you wound yourself. Then you will have
stomach ulcers. Then this fire will rage inside you. Then you will always be sitting on
top of a volcano. You will never be at ease; you will be always restless. All joy will
disappear from your life.
The society, the church, the state, is in favour of the second. The society says, 'Don't
be angry with the other. Do whatsoever you want to do with it -- swallow it -- but
don't be angry with the other.' If you suffer from ulcers, that is your business. If you
suffer from cancer, that is your business. And the society has given you explanations
such that the cancer need not be connected at all with your anger; the ulcer need not
be connected with your anger.
If you swallow anger today the ulcers won't appear just today -- they will take years.
Maybe after forty years of swallowing the anger, the ulcers will appear. And after
sixty years of swallowing the anger, cancer will appear. So you will not be able to
relate anger with the cancer. You will not be able to find any reason to show that it is
anger that has created the cancer. That seems to be so far-fetched.
The society has decided that you should just behave rightly. The society protects the
other because the society consists of the other. The society says that you can be
self-destructive, that is your business. The society is against murder but it is not
against suicide. It is suicide if you turn your negative emotions inwards. I am against
both because both will create guilt and both will create complexities.
What is my approach? My approach is that if anger is there -- watch. Witness that
anger is there. Don't do anything about it. There is no need to do. Just look at it. And
you will be surprised that just by looking at it, it starts disappearing. The cloud sooner
or later disperses, is gone. And when the cloud is gone and you have not done
anything about it -- neither throwing it out nor throwing it in -- you will not feel any
guilt ever.
And this is how one should relate to all kinds of negative emotions. Be a witness. Just
watch it. Sufis call IT SAHADA -- be a witness. Hindus call it SAKSHIN -- be a
witness. Just watch. Don't do anything. Doing is not needed. All doing is wrong. If
you do anything about it, something is going to be wrong -- because you will be doing
under its impact. If you do it to others, it will be wrong; if you do to yourself, it will
be wrong. Anything done under the impact of a negative emotion is going to be wrong.
And then later on guilt will arise.
But there is a way not to do -- be a watcher, just be a witness. See it. It is there. You
are not it, you are the seer. Sit silently when you are angry, when you are jealous,
when you are full of hatred. Close your doors. Sit silently. Let the anger be there, let
the anger flash in front of you, let the hatred move like a movie -- and you be a
watcher.
And you will be surprised. It cannot be there forever, one thing is certain. Sooner or
later it goes. It only takes minutes to go. And when it is gone, it is gone; it leaves no
trace behind it. No guilt is created. And a man who does not create guilt is religious. I
call a man who does not create any kind of guilt religious.
The sixth question:
Question 6
BELOVED OSHO. THIS MORNING IN THE LECTURE I WAS FAST ASLEEP
AND SUDDENLY FELT A HARD WEIGHT ON MY BACK. AT FIRST I
THOUGHT I MUST BE SNORING OR MAKING A NOISE AND SOMEONE
MUST HAVE WOKEN ME TO STOP ME, BUT I FOUND OUT THAT NO ONE
HAD HIT ME. WHAT WAS IT?
The question is from Sheela.
I have not answered it up to now because each day when I wanted to answer she was
asleep again! It is not a new question! I have been waiting. But today she is awake so
I thought that this is the moment.
Sheela, can't you recognise my hand when I wake you?
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #3
Chapter title: Here, Now, This....
29 August 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7708290
ShortTitle:
SUFIS203
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 96 mins
IMAM MUHAMMED BAQIR IS SAID TO HAVE RELATED THIS
ILLUSTRATIVE FABLE:
'FINDING I COULD SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF ANTS, I APPROACHED ONE
AND ENQUIRED, "WHAT IS GOD LIKE? DOES HE RESEMBLE THE ANT?"
'HE ANSWERED, "GOD! NO, INDEED -- WE HAVE ONLY A SINGLE STING,
BUT GOD, HE HAS TWO!"'
What is God?
Al-Hillaj Mansoor says:
it is the gathering together then the silence
then the loss of words and the awareness
then the discovering and the nakedness.
and it is the fire clay then the fire
then the clarity and the cold
then the darkness then the sun.
and it is the orgy then the casting away of cares
then the wish and the approach
then the conjunction then the joy.
and it is the strain then the relaxation
then the disappearance and the separation
then the union...
then the fusion.
What is God?
It depends on you. Your God will be your God, my God will be my God. There are as
many Gods as there are possibilities of looking at God. It is natural. We cannot go
beyond our plane; we can only be aware of God through our eyes, through our minds.
God will be just a reflection in our small mirror. That's why there are so many
concepts about God.
It is like the moon in the sky on a full moon night. There are millions of rivers and
reservoirs and oceans and small streams and small puddles on the road -- they will all
reflect God, they will all reflect the moon. A small puddle will reflect the moon in its
own way and the big ocean will reflect it in its own way.
Then there is great controversy. Hindus say something, Mohammedans say something
else, Christians say something else again -- and so on, so forth. The controversy is
foolish. The conflict is meaningless. God is reflected in millions of ways, in millions
of mirrors. Each mirror reflects in its own way. This is one of the fundamentals to be
understood. Not understanding this fundamental there is naturally antagonism
between religions, because they all think, 'If our standpoint is right then the other has
to be wrong.' Their rightness depends on the other's wrongness. This is stupid. God is
infinite, and you can look at him through many ways, through many windows. And
naturally you can look at him only through yourself -- you will be the window. Your
God will reflect God as much as it will reflect you; you will both be there.
When Mansoor says something, he is saying something about himself. This
tremendously beautiful statement -- 'THEN THE UNION... THEN THE FUSION' -is much more about al-Hillaj Mansoor than about God. This is Mansoor's God. This is
Mansoor's unique experience.
Mansoor was murdered, crucified, like Jesus. Mohammedans could not understand
him. This happens always. You cannot understand any point higher than your own. It
becomes a danger to you. If you accept it, then you accept that there is some
possibility which is higher than you. That hurts the ego, that humiliates. You would
like to destroy a Mansoor or a Christ or a Socrates just for a single reason: that you
cannot conceive, you cannot concede, that there is a possibility of some higher
standpoint than yours. You seem to believe that you are the last thing in existence; that
you are the paradigm, that you are the climax, that there is no beyond. This is the
attitude of the stupid and the irreligious mind. The religious mind is always open. The
religious mind is never confined by its own limitations. It keeps remembering that
there is no end to growth; one can go on growing.
It is said in the Bible that God created man in his own image. This is a human
statement; it says nothing about God. It simply says something about man. It is man
writing about himself. Naturally man thinks in terms which are anthropomorphic.
Man thinks in terms of man being the centre of existence. God created man in his own
image. He has to... at least in human scriptures he has to follow the human mind and
the human ego.
Just the contrary is the case. Man has created God in his own image. Man's God is a
human God. You can see. You can go into the temples and you can see the images of
God. They are made in the form of human beings -- a little better, more beautiful. but
still a modification, a decoration of the human body. They have human eyes with a
little more compassion. Just a little more is added. The ideal human being, that's what
our Gods are.
When Nietzsche declared that God was dead. he was, in fact. not saying anything
against God himself. He was simply saying that the God that we have followed up to
now is no Longer applicable because man has grown up. The God that we have been
following up to now was a childish, juvenile God. Humanity was juvenile. Somebody
worshipping a stone as God is saying a very, very primitive thing. His statement is
very primitive, pagan. Somebody worshipping an idol is a little better, but still limited.
All forms are limited. Somebody worshipping a tree... a little more alive because the
tree has a kind of vitality. God is vital; the tree participates in god so it is vital. God is
green and fresh and so is the tree; and God blooms and the tree blooms. There is an
at-oneness.
But a tree is a tree. It may be a faraway reflection of the divine, but to worship the tree
as God is ignorant. Somebody worshipping a river may be right in his own way -because the river also expresses the divine, everything expresses him -- but everything
expresses him in a limited way. He is all. So no single thing can express him in his
totality. How can a single thing express him in his totality? If you worship the tree,
what about the river? If you worship the river, what about the sun? If you worship the
sun, what about the moon? You are worshipping only one thing -- and because it is
limited and one, it cannot represent all.
When Nietzsche said 'God is dead', he was saying that all formulations of God up to
now have become irrelevant. Man has gone beyond them; man has become more
mature. Man needs new Gods every time. As man becomes more mature he needs a
more mature God. Look in the Old Testament. God is ferocious, very jealous. God
declares, 'I am a very jealous God. If you worship somebody else I will be your enemy.
I will torture you in hell. I will throw you into fire.' This seems to be a very primitive
God; seems to be conceived of by a Genghis Khan -- not very cultured, not very
sophisticated yet.
The Hindu God is far more sophisticated. Krishna with his flute is far more cultured.
But Buddha reaches to the very peak because he drops the idea of God. He talks about
godliness. The very word 'God' makes God like a thing: defined, clear-cut, solid,
concrete, like a rock. Buddha drops the very idea. He says, 'There is godliness but
there is no God. There is divineness. Existence is full of divineness, BHAGWATA,
but there is no God like a person sitting there on a golden throne controlling,
managing, creating. No, there is no God as a person. The whole existence is full of
divinity, that is true. It is overflowing with godliness.'
Now this is a far higher concept. we drop the limitations of a person. We make god
more like a process. The ancient concept says that God created the world, he was the
creator. Buddha does not agree. He says, 'God is creativity, not a creator.' God is one
with his creativity. So whenever you are creating something you participate in God.
When a painter is lost in his painting, when he is completely absorbed in his painting,
he is no longer an ordinary painter. He is divine in that moment of absorption. THEN
THE UNION... THEN THE FUSION.
A dancer lost utterly in his dance is a human no more; hence the beauty, hence the
utter beauty. Even those who are just spectators, even they start feeling something
strange, incredible, fantastic, happening.
It happened that for nine years before al-Hillaj Mansoor was crucified he was
confined in a jail. And he was tremendously happy because he used those nine years
for constant meditation. Outside there were always disturbances, distractions -friends, followers, the society, the world, the worries. He was very happy. The day he
was put into jail he thanked God from his very heart. He said, 'You love me so much.
Now you have given me complete protection from the world and there is nothing left
except you and me.' THEN THE UNION... THEN THE FUSION.
Those nine years were of tremendous absorption. And after those nine years it was
decided that he had to be crucified, because he had not changed a bit. On the contrary,
he had gone farther in the same direction. His direction was that he started declaring,
'I am God -- AN-EL-HAQ! I am the truth, I am the reality.'
His Master, al-Junaid, tried to persuade him in many ways -- 'Don't say these things!
Keep them inside you, because the people won't understand it and you will be getting
into trouble unnecessarily!'
But it was beyond Mansoor. Whenever he was in that state -- what Sufis call HAL -whenever he was in that state, he would start singing and dancing. And those
utterances would simply overflow; it was not possible for him to control them. There
was nobody to control; all control was lost. Junaid understood his state, but he knew
the state of the people too -- that sooner or later Mansoor would be thought to be
anti-religious. His declaration, 'I am God,' was a fact, his experience was there behind
it, but people didn't understand it. They would take it as arrogance, as ego, and there
would be trouble. And the trouble came.
After nine years they decided that he had not changed a bit; in fact he had grown
deeper into it. Now he was continuously declaring, 'AN-EL-HAQ! I am the truth! I
am God!' So finally they decided that he had to be crucified.
When they went to take him out from his prison cell, it was very difficult -- because
he was in a HAL, in that mystic state. He was no longer a person, he was just pure
energy. How to drag pure energy out? The people who went there were just struck
dumb! What was happening in that dark cell was so fantastic! It was so luminous.
Mansoor was surrounded by an aura not of this world. Mansoor was not there as a
person. Sufis have TWO words for it: one is BAKA, another is FANA. BAKA means
you are defined by a personality, you have a definition around you, you have a
demarcation line that this is you. FANA means that you are dissolved into God and
you don't have any definition. BAKA IS like an ice cube and FANA is like the ice
cube which has melted and become one with the river.
This constantly happens to the mystics: they move from baka to FANA, from FANA
to BAKA. It is almost like day and night. By and by there comes a kind of rhythm.
Sometimes you will find the mystic in the state of BAKA -- and when you find him in
the state of BAKA you will see the most unique individuality that has ever been seen.
In the state of BAKA he will be a unique individual -- very original, very pure,
clear-cut. he will be like a peak standing against the sky, or like a star in the dark night
-- so clear, so separate, so individual. That is the meaning of BAKA -- individual.
You will not find these kinds of individuals in the ordinary world. There are people
but not individuals, persons but not individuals A person is one who has no
individuality; he is just an anonymous part of a mass. He lives like they live, he talks
like they talk, he eats like they eat, he goes to the movie that they go to, he purchases
the car that they purchase, he makes a house like they make -- he is continuously
following 'they', the mass, the collectivity, the crowd. He is not himself; he is very
confused. His boundary lines are very messy. They are there but they are in a mess;
they are not clear-cut. If you look into him you will not find him there. You will find
layers upon layers of conditioning. He will be a Mohammedan because he was born in
a Mohammedan house. He will be a Hindu because he was born into a Hindu family.
He will be reciting the Gita because his father used to recite it -- and his father's father.
For ages they have been reciting it, so he is reciting it. It all seems accidental. He has
no uniqueness in him. He is just a part. He lives like they live, he dies like they die.
He lives their life, he dies their death. He never asserts himself, he is never rebellious.
This is the state of the ordinary personality. This is not individuality.
Individuality arises only when you become very clear-cut, when you attain an original
shape of your being, when you do your thing, when you don't care what others say,
when you are ready to sacrifice your whole life for your freedom, when freedom
becomes your ultimate value and nothing else matters -- then you become BAKA,
individual. And this is the paradox: only individuals can go into FANA, into that utter
dissolution, desolation, into that utter disappearance.
First you have to be, only then can you disappear. If you are not, then what is going to
disappear? First you have to detach yourself from the crowd, only then can you take
the jump. So this is the paradox: the man in the state of BAKA can go into the state of
FANA, and only he can go.
The mass man cannot go into FANA because he does not know who he is. He has no
address yet, he has no name yet, he has no identity yet. He is just a number. He can be
replaced very easily, he's replaceable. He is just a part doing a certain kind of work.
He is a function. For example, he may be an engineer. If he dies, you can put another
engineer there and nobody will miss him. Or he may be a doctor. If he dies, you place
another doctor there and nobody will miss him. He is a replaceable part, he is a
function.
But the man of BAKA is not a function; he has a totally different kind of quality in his
being. He will be missed forever and ever. Once he is gone you cannot replace him.
You cannot replace Jesus. You can replace the pope of the Vatican; many times you
have replaced him. Each time one pope dies he is replaced. You can replace the
Shankaracharya of Puri very easily, there is no problem -- one dies and you put
another there. But you cannot replace the original Shankaracharya. You cannot replace
Jesus, you cannot replace Mohammed. Once gone they are gone forever. They exist as
unique individuals -- that is the state of BAKA. And they are the only people capable
of going into FANA. It looks contradictory, because FANA means losing all your
definition, losing all your being.
But first you have to have the being to lose it. How can you lose it if you don't have it?
How can you renounce it if you don't have it? So the paradox is only apparent. It has a
very, very universal law behind it. First you have to have something in order to drop it.
First gather together. IT IS THE GATHERING TOGETHER THEN THE SILENCE.
First gather together, integrate, become BAKA, and then you can go into FANA.
This man, Mansoor, became a man of unique individuality. Wherever he went he was
immediately recognised; it was impossible to miss him. He came to India too. In fact,
because his Master, al-Junaid, told him, 'It is better if you start travelling into other
countries, otherwise you will be caught,' he travelled to faraway countries.
Everywhere he was recognised imme-diately. He was a king of kings. You could not
miss him. If he was standing in a crowd of ten thousand people, you would be able to
see him. He had BAKA; he was crystal clear. His presence was immense, huge,
enormous. Once you had seen him, all other persons would look pale, faint, flat. So
sooner or later he would be recognised and he would have to leave the country
because trouble would arise.
He went to many countries in the Middle East, but wherever he went it was okay for a
few days -- he could live without being recognised -- but not for long. So finally he
went back and said to Junaid, his Master, 'It is futile. I get caught everywhere. So why
not here?'
When this man was being carried from the cell, the officers who had come to take him
out could not find exactly where he was. He was there, utterly there. The whole cell
was full of a radiance, a presence -- very solid yet indefinable. They could not enter
the cell. They stood there in awe, in wonder -- 'What to do?' Finally they gathered
courage. They tried to pull him out but they could not. Then there was only one way:
his Master al-Junaid was asked to come and help because the time was passing and
Mansoor had to be crucified and they could not get him out.
Al-Junaid came and he said, 'Mansoor, now listen. A thousand and one times I have
told you to surrender to God. If he wants you to be crucified, then be ordinary and be
crucified. Let him do his work. Enough is enough?' And when al-Junaid shouted,
Mansoor came back out of the FANA into the BAKA. Again there was a demarcation
line; he was no longer a cloud, he became concrete and solid. The boundaries
appeared. The Master had come and he had to listen to his Master.
Then he was taken to the gallows. It was very difficult to kill him. One thousand
wounds were made on his body -- still he was alive. Then they started cutting off his
limbs, but still he was alive -- because on the cross he again lost the state of BAKA
and went into the state of FANA. He got lost again into ecstasy, into that energy that is
God.
God is energy for a man of the state of Mansoor. God is consciousness for the man of
the state of Buddha. God is love for Christ. He is not a person. These three L's have to
be learned: God is love, life, light. You have heard about the three R's. The three R's
make you civilised. These three L's make you religious.
Be more alive -- so much so that you become one with life. Then let love arise so
much that you start overflowing with love. Then you know no boundaries. Then out
of you a new kind of light starts arising, a luminousness. These three 'L's' have to be
learned, and those three 'R's' have to be forgotten.
The whole philosophy of Sufism is to approach God as cos-mic energy, with no
concept. But we all have concepts and all concepts are juvenile, childish. God cannot
be conceptualised.
We have been given concepts by others; we have learned them. They are just
suggestions from the mass, ideas put into your head. Christians have an idea of an old
man with a white beard, very ancient-looking, sitting there on a golden throne
surrounded by angels, controlling the world. There is nothing wrong about it, but
there is nothing right either. It is good enough to satisfy the curiosity of small children,
children also need some idea about God, but one has to grow out of this childishness.
We go on hammering certain ideas into the heads of small children.
I have heard....
The clergyman said to Mrs. Mott whose baby was just christened, 'Oh, Mrs. Mott, I
have never seen a child that was so well behaved at a christening.'
Mrs. Mott said, 'Well, it's because my husband and I have been practising on him with
a watering can for a week.'
If you practise on a child for one week with a watering can, of course.... It becomes
habitual. And that's what has been done to humanity down the ages -- ideas have been
practised on you. Those who practise them don't know what they are doing; they are
in the same trap. Their parents practised those ideas on them. They don't know what
they are, what they are talking about. If you insist too much on asking what exactly
the word 'God' means,. you will make anybody and everybody uncomfortable. So
asking questions is not supported; one has to accept these things, one has to believe
these things. Nobody likes answering if you ask too much. If you go on asking, you
make the other person very uncomfortable because you start seeing and touching his
buttons. It is also a belief for him; he does not know what God is.
It is just out of fear that children have been trained, and out of fear they go on clinging.
That's why whenever you are afraid you start thinking more of God. In a dark night,
passing through a cemetery, you are bound to remember God. When you are alone, ill,
in difficulties, in frustration, in anxieties, in misery, you remember God. God is more
associated with misery. If you are happy, you tend to forget God. God has no
association with happiness. In reality, it should be just the other way -- when you are
happy you can approach God more easily because a happy mind is a flowing mind, a
happy mind is an open mind, a happy mind is more vulnerable, more delicate.
An unhappy mind is closed. How can a mind that lives in fear be open? It is not
possible.
I have heard....
A young man wanted to pass an old man in a wagon on a country road, but the old
man would not pull over.
Finally when he had passed the old man, he took his pistol out and walked back to the
wagon. 'Old man, do you know how to dance?' he asked, shooting at the ground near
the old man's feet and laughing uproariously as he began to jump up and down.
When the young man started back, the old man grabbed his concealed shotgun and
said, 'Young man, did you ever kiss a mule?'
The young man said, looking into the barrel of the shotgun, 'No, but I always wanted
to.'
Out of fear you can create anything. And your God is created out of fear. Your God is
nothing but your fear instinct. It is not your experience.
A little boy in Aberdeen, Scotland, was disciplined by his mother, who used to say to
him when he was naughty, 'Now, God won't like that.' And when he was particularly
unruly or disobedient, she would say, 'God will be angry.'
Usually these admonitions were sufficient, but one night when she had prunes for his
dessert at supper, he rebelled. He refused to finish the prunes on his plate. She pleaded,
she coaxed. Finally she said, 'Now, God won't like this. God doesn't like little boys
who refuse to finish all their prunes.'
But the little fellow was quite unmoved. She went on further to say, 'God will be
angry.' But for some reason or other the little boy stubbornly refused to take the last
two prunes which lay on his plate... dark blue, wrinkled tokens of his rebellion.
'Well,' said the mother, 'you must now go to bed. You have been a very naughty boy,
and God is angry, really angry.'
So she packed him upstairs and put him to bed. No sooner had she come down than a
violent thunderstorm broke out. The lightning was more vivid than usual. The thunder
clumped up and down the sky with shattering reverberations. The suddenly angry
wind threw handfuls of rain against the windows. It was a most violent storm, and she
thought her little son would be terrified and that she should go up and comfort him.
Quietly she opened his bedroom door, expecting to find him whimpering in fear,
perhaps with the covers pulled over his head. But to her surprise he was not in bed at
all; he had gone to the window. With his face pressed against the window pane, she
heard him mutter, 'My, my, such a fuss to make over two prunes!'
But that's how your God is.
You have been brought up in fear and you have been brought up in greed. Because of
fear and greed you go on believing in a certain idea of God. That idea is as absurd as
your greed and your fear. It has nothing to do with Gd, it has something to do with
you and your psychology.
If you really want to know what God is, then you will have to drop all kinds of fear
and all kinds of greed. You will have to drop, in reality, your whole psychology, your
whole mind. God is an experience of the state of no-mind, FANA; when you are no
more, dissolved, then you know what God is.
So, a few things.... God is not a concept, a theory, a hypothesis, an explanation, a
philosophy -- not at all. How can you make a concept of something that you don't
know? You don't know God, you have never encountered God, so what-soever you
think about him is borrowed, is pseudo. The real has to be your experience. Otherwise,
God is a kind of explanation -- because there are problems in life and there are
puzzles in life and there are mysteries in life, and you always find it difficult to
explain them. Birth is there and death is there, and this whole tremendously beautiful
existence is there. From where does it come? Who creates it? Why is it created? Why
is it at all? Why is it rather than not? A thousand and one questions arise in the mind
and you need some comfortable, convenient explanation so you can rest and sleep
well. God is a blanket explanation. It covers all your problems. In a single concept
you explain everything.
Whenever you say 'God knows', you simply mean 'I don't know'. But it is a very
tricky strategy. You don't say 'I don't know', you say 'God knows'. It gives you a kind
of feeling that you may not know it but there is somebody who knows -- and that is
your God and he takes care, you need not worry. Father knows, mother knows, God
knows, somebody knows. So why bother? You can remain unburdened. But let me tell
you, God is not an explanation. And those who cling to explanations will never know
what God is.
God is the dropping away of all explanations and all theories and all philosophies.
God is the dropping away of all kinds of thinking, because thinking is a barrier. How
can you think about the unknown? You can think only about the known. Thinking is
just chewing the same thing over and over again. You can think only that which you
have known already. Thinking never gives you anything original; it cannot, it is not in
its nature. And God is the most unknown phenomenon. God means the totality. It is
not known. All explanations are kinds of deceptions -- deceiving yourself, deceiving
others, that you know.
A sincere, honest seeker will drop all explanations. That is what is meant when
al-Hillaj says,
IT IS THE GATHERING TOGETHER THEN THE SILENCE
-- the silence which comes when you drop all explanations, all theories, all
philosophies.
THEN THE LOSS OF WORDS
-- then the words are not needed at all. When all theories and all explanations and
philosophies have been dropped, what are you going to do with words?
THEN THE LOSS OF WORDS AND THE AWARENESS
-- when words are lost, in that silence awareness arises.
THEN THE DISCOVERING AND THE NAKEDNESS
-- you are utterly naked. Before God you have to be utterly naked, with no
explanations, no philosophies surrounding you. You have to be as naked as possible,
totally nude, empty, undressed. Then only is there a possibility of contacting God.
God is not a person -- that is the second thing to remember. It is human to think about
God as a person. When we think about God as a person it looks warmer. Lao Tzu says
'Tao', but Tao doesn't seem so warm. You cannot hug Tao. Tao cannot hug you.
Buddha says 'Dhamma' -- the law. But the law seems to be cold. You need some warm
embrace, you need a God who can love you, who can caress you, who can kiss you,
who can take you close, who can hold your hand. This is human desire, desire for
warmth.
But existence has no obligation to fulfill your desires. Your desire is all right, but your
desire simply shows that you are missing love, not God. Try to understand it. Your
desire simply shows that you have missed your parents -- your mother, your father, or
you have missed a beloved. Your desire simply shows that there is some hankering for
love that you are projecting on to God. So God becomes a person. You transform God
into a person because OF your need. But this is your need, and there is no necessity
that your need has to be fulfilled. You have to understand your need and drop it. That's
why my insistence is never to remain unfulfilled in your love, otherwise you will
never find the real God.
Love as much as you can. Love human beings, love animals, love trees, love rocks,
mountains, rivers -- love as much as you can. Let there be great experience of love so
that your love-need is fulfilled, so that one day you can transcend love.
Just the other day there was a question from Ananda Prem. WHY, she asks, DO
SPIRITUAL PERSONS WANT TO GO BEYOND LOVE? This is why. Because if
you are not yet satisfied in your love, you will go on projecting love-needs onto God.
And that will be a false God, that will be your projection. That will be your idea, not
the reality of God. You cannot see the reality of God. You will see God in terms of
what you would like him to be; you cannot see that which is. You will have a kind of
wish fulfilment.
So Freud is not absolutely wrong when he says that God is a kind of wish fulfilment.
He's right about ninety-nine per cent of people. He's right about Ananda Prem.
Ananda Prem is suffering from a love-need. She tries to find a lover and she cannot,
because she has a certain idea of a lover. The very idea becomes an obstruction. She
searches for a perfect lover. Yes, it is very difficult in the first place to find a perfect
lover, and if you can find one, the perfect lover will not be in any kind of need. A
needy person cannot relate to a perfect lover. Only a perfect lover can relate to a
perfect lover. Both will be without needs. Their love will be of a totally new kind; it
will be a kind of sharing. It is not that they need each other; just because they have so
much they want to give it.
A perfect lover is one who is as happy alone as when he is with the beloved; there is
no difference. Then he is a perfect lover. But he is as happy alone.
Now Ananda Prem goes on searching for a perfect lover, and because she cannot find
the perfect lover and ordinary human beings are just worthless for her, now she can
start projecting upon God. She writes in her question: WHAT ABOUT MEERA?
MEERA LOVED GOD IN THE FORM OF KRISHNA, STILL SHE ATTAINED. Yes,
she loved God in the form of Krishna, but Meera's love is the love of a perfect human
being. She has no need, she does not want anything from Krishna; she simply goes on
giving. She has a song to sing, she sings. She has a dance to dance, she dances. She
has nothing to get, she only gives. And she gets a thousandfold -- that is another thing,
but she has nothing to get.
If you want to become Meera, Ananda Prem, first you will have to be fulfilled about
human love-needs -- otherwise your Krishna will be false, it will not be Meera's
Krishna. Your Krishna will be just your imagination, your Krishna will be just a
projection of a repressed desire. Your Krishna will have much sexuality. First be
finished with the human needs. And the only way to be finished is to go into them. I
am not against them, remember, and I am not saying that something is wrong in them.
There is a great lesson in them and it can be learned only by going through them. Go
through them, don't demand the impossible -- otherwise love will not happen.
Remember the limitation of human beings, and remember your limitations. And
whatsoever kind of love is possible, go into it. don't hanker for the impossible,
otherwise you will miss even the possible. And the impossible cannot happen. The
impossible happens only the other way round: go through the possible, let the possible
be finished with, let your being come out of it fulfilled -- then the impossible can also
happen. You have become capable of it.
If people's love-needs are not fulfilled, they go on projecting onto God -- and poor
God suffers unnecessarily. When I was reading Ananda Prem's question I became very,
very sad for God. If Ananda Prem starts loving God, then think about God too! -because he cannot go to the court, he cannot say no; he just has to suffer your love.
First go through human turmoil, human anguish -- the joys of human love and the
miseries of human love. Let yourself become ripe through it. Then only do you have
the fragrance which can be offered to God, not before it. First become a lotus. Come
out of the mud of desire. And remember, the lotus comes out of the mud. Out of
desiring comes the state of desirelessness -- the lotus of desirelessness. Seeing the
futility of desire again and again and again, one day one becomes so mature that one
drops the very desire. In that very dropping is the meeting. When there is no desire
there is nothing to hinder you from seeing God. Then God is all over the place, then
only God is. But God is not a person.
Christians say that God is a father. Gd is not a father. That simply shows somehow
that your father-need is still unfulfilled. There are people who say that God is a
mother. That simply shows that their mother-need is unfulfilled. There are some who
think that God is a lover. Then their love-need is not fulfilled. What you say about
God shows something about you. If you think of God as a father, it simply shows that
you are unsatisfied with your father, that you are not yet reconciled with your father,
that you have become too dependent on your father. You need a father in the sky now.
Maybe your father is dead and you cannot live without a father, or maybe your father
is far away and you cannot live without your father. You are still immature and
childish; you need somebody to cling to. Then you will create God the father.
God is neither father nor mother nor lover nor beloved. God is not a person at all.
God is energy, cosmic energy. God is continuous creativity. God is love, life, light.
God is not an object of experience either. It is not that one day you will encounter God
as an object of experience. God is not an object and God is not a subject either. When
subject and object meet and disappear into each other, FANA, then there is a new kind
of experience -- what Krishnamurti calls 'experiencing'. It is not even experience,
because the very word experience seems to be finished, complete, rounded. God is
never complete, never finished; it is always an ongoing affair, always open, always
flowering, always moving. God is a dynamic energy.God is a process, not a thing.
So, an experiencing.... And what is an experiencing? What is the difference between
experience and experiencing? The difference is that in experience you remain separate
from the object. For example, you are listening to me. This can happen in two ways.
For those who are here just as spectators, as listeners, as an audience, it is an
experience. I am here separate from them; they are there separate from me. I am an
object and they are the subject. They are there centred in their egos listening to me.
And they are continuously judging whether this is right or wrong, whether this applies
or not, whether this can be practised or not, whether this agrees with their scripture or
not -- they are continuously judging inside. This will be an experience.
But those who are in deep love with me, who are not standing against me, who are not
there as a subject listening to me, who get lost into it, who are en rapport with me,
involved with me, involved with me as if they are listening to themselves, to their
own heartbeat -- then there is not an experience but experiencing. Then I am not here
separate from them, and they are not there separate from me. Then there is a union
and a fusion.
God is an experiencing.
If you want to know what God is you will have to learn the art of experiencing. Then
there is no need to go to a mosque or to a temple or to a church. Wherever
experiencing happens there is the church, there is the temple, there is the mosque.
Looking at a roseflower, if you disappear into the roseflower and the roseflower
disappears into you -- the observer becomes the observed and there is no distinction
left, there are not two things confronting each other but a meeting, merging, melting
into each other -- then boundaries are no longer there. Somehow you have entered
into the rose and the rose has entered into you. And this is possible, this
transfiguration is possible. Because it is possible, religion is relevant, meaningful -otherwise religion won't be meaningful. Being with the roseflower, you enter into God.
Then all possibilities can be used as doors to the divine.
I have heard....
Bernard Synon writes: Think of a man driving up a country hill road, who upon
reaching the top, stops his car and walks over to a nearby five-barred gate. Leaning on
it he gazes with pleasure at the vista spread out before him. There is a sky of
breathless blue, full of birds wheeling lazily in the warm sun. Fields of emerald green
ripple in the soft breeze, while on the hillsides cattle and sheep graze peacefully. The
whole scene is one of tranquil beauty and the man draws a deep breath saying, 'It is
really lovely.'
At that moment another car draws up and the first man ;s joined by another. 'Beautiful,
isn't it?' murmurs the first man.
The other man is silent for a moment, then says thought-fully, 'Have you ever
considered what is really happening out there? These graceful birds who wheel in the
sky are seeking food. How graceful do they look to the insects they gobble? or to the
writhing worms they drag from the earth with cruel and rending beaks?'
The first man shifts uneasily, 'Ah, come now!'
The other man speaks again. 'Those sheep so peacefully grazing -- they are being
fattened and will soon be dragged to the slaughterhouse trembling with fear as they
smell the blood-stained floor on which they will die. Their little lambs will be
snatched away to dangle from butchers' hooks.'
The first man is silent as the voice continues.
'This emerald green grace rippling in the sun -- within it murder and mayhem are
constantly taking place as spiders devour flies and large insects devour the smaller. If
the sounds could be interpreted and magnified, screams of pain and fear would
reverberate throughout this lush meadow.'
The first is a poet; he looks through the eyes of positivity. The second is a critic; he
looks through the eyes of negativity. Bernard Synon ends this small parable here. I
would like to bring another man, the mystic, in.
A third car comes and out gets a mystic who listens to the stories of both the men and
laughs. And he says, 'Life is not either/or. Life is both/and. You are both right, but life
is more than that. Yes, there is dark night and there is bright day, there is summer and
there is winter, and there is life and there is death. You are both right, but you have
chosen one standpoint against the other. You see only half the picture of life and you
try to impose that half on the whole. Then you go wrong. I don't choose, I simply
accept as it is.'
Yes, there is death and there is life and both are intertwined. Seeing both together one
transcends; one transcends to a higher peak. Then one is no longer dominated by any
standpoint. Then you see life and death as part of each other, and then you are so
transcendental to- both that you see eternity. Then there is neither beauty nor ugliness,
there is simply truth.
Beauty is choosing one standpoint, ugliness is choosing another standpoint. Truth is
not choosing any standpoint at all. Truth is not choosing.
God is not any aspect of reality. God is all the aspects together without any choice. If
you choose, you miss; if you don't choose, there is no way to miss. But there is a
problem.... When you choose, you can remain yourself -- all choice feeds the ego.
When you don't choose, you disappear. You disappear with your choice, likes, dislikes.
You cannot exist without choosing. The ego cannot exist without choice. Choice is its
very breath. Just as you cannot exist if the breath disappears, so ego cannot exist
without choosing, without taking a standpoint, without being for or against. Once you
don't take any standpoint, you disappear. In that disappearance is God.
You will never meet God, remember. Nobody has ever met God. When people say
that they have met God, what they mean Is that they have disappeared, only God is.
The ego disappears and then there is experiencing -- continuous, constant, eternal.
That energy, that everflowing energy, is what God is.
So remember, God is not an object of experience, neither is he the subject of
experience -- God is experiencing itself. God is not static but a process -- evolving,
expanding, exploding, exploring. It goes on and on. It is an adventure; it is a
pilgrimage from nowhere to nowhere. God is not there in the heavens or somewhere
else -- God is not there, God is here. And God is not then, God is now. And God is not
that, God is this.
If you can understand these few words: here, now, this.... These three words are the
three pillars of Sufism, of Zen, of all that is essential religion. These three words -- let
them vibrate in your being again and again: here, now, this.
Those who think of God as that -- far away, somewhere else -- are just imagining, and
missing the obvious which is just close by. God is not far away. He is closer than you
are to yourself. He's your innermost core, how he can be far away? And God is not
then, there -- lin the past, in the future. It is not that God used to walk in the days of
Moses and talk to people, it is not that God used to talk to Mohammed and will not
talk to you. It is not that he used to sing songs to the seers of the Upanishads and he
has forgotten you or abandoned you. God is now. God is always now. God is never
past, never future. In relationship to God, past and future are meaningless words. You
cannot say 'God was', you cannot say 'God will be'. You have always to say 'God is'.
There is only one tense: is, present. And God is here this very moment.
If you can be in a state of experiencing, God is here, now, this. If you cannot be in the
state of experiencing, God is never, nowhere. This state of experiencing is what Sufis
call medi-tation. But this God here, now, this, is a dangerous God. You have to
disappear for it to be. You have to dissolve into it. It is risky. We have created
substitutes to avoid the risk.
It was announced in church that a substitute preacher would preach.
A little boy leaned over and asked his mother, 'What is a substitute?'
'Well, for example, son, if you threw your baseball through the window and broke it,
and we didn't have another real pane, we could put a piece of cardboard in the
window... that is what we call a substitute.'
When the substitute minister had finished preaching that morning, the little boy
leaned over and said, 'Mother, this sure is not a substitute... he is a real pain!'
All your substitutes are real pains because no substitute can ever satisfy. No substitute
can ever fulfil, no substitute can ever quench your thirst. But man is very cunning and
goes on creating substitutes. Your temples are substitute temples, your teachers are
substitute teachers, your prayers are substitute prayers. Your own prayer has not arisen
yet, and you have not yet found the temple of experiencing. But remember, you
choose these substitutes, and then you suffer. And when you suffer, you blame God.
I have heard....
Cohen, aged eighty-six, had lived through beatings in Polish pogroms, concentration
camps in Germany, and dozens of other anti-Semitic calamities.
'Ah, Lord!' he prayed, sitting in the synagogue. 'Isn't it true that we are your chosen
people?'
And from the heavens boomed a voice, 'Yes, Cohen, the Jews are my chosen people!'
'Well, then,' wailed the old man, 'isn't it time you chose somebody else?'
No people are God's chosen people. You have chosen to be God s chosen people -and then you suffer. Jews have suffered for a really long time. And all their misery can
be condensed into this single thing: they have chosen to be the chosen people of God.
That very ego has created great antagonism. And they are stubbornly clinging to it.
The more they have suffered, the more stubborn they have become.
But God has not chosen anybody. How can God choose? All is his. All is he. There is
no question of choice. But we choose our ideas and then those ideas become prisons,
calamities. Beware! If you are suffering, then look back -- you must have chosen
something wrong, otherwise you cannot suffer. This is my basic observation after
observing thousands of people and their miseries. Whenever I see somebody suffering
and in misery, I have by and by become absolutely certain about one thing -- that he is
responsible, that he has chosen some wrong ideas, that he has chosen some wrong
notions. But those who suffer always throw the responsibility on others. And
sometimes it seems very unjust. If a couple comes to me and the wife or the husband
is miserable but the other partner is not miserable at all, the miserable partner tries to
throw the responsibility on the other -- 'He is responsible for my misery.'
It seems very hard to tell the person who is in misery that he must be responsible for
his misery -- because nobody else can be responsible for his misery. If the other is
happy he must have chosen different values. He must have chosen values that give
happiness, health, wholeness. If you have chosen wrong values, you suffer, but you
can always manipulate and interpret in such a way that your suffering seems as if it
has been done to you, Nobody can make you suffer. It is always basically you who
decide whether to suffer or not. In every situation you can take a standpoint from
which you can get out of suffering, and in every situation you can take a standpoint
from which you can create as much suffering as you like. But people like to suffer.
There is a reason for it: the more they suffer the more they are. In suffering the ego
feels strengthened; in bliss it disappears.
So you go on saying that you need bliss, that you seek bliss, but when I look into you
I find just the opposite. You seek misery, you live on misery, you look for misery. You
go on saying that you seek bliss and you go on looking for misery. Unless this
mechanism is understood perfectly well, you will never be able to know what God is.
God is bliss. And bliss is possible only when you have understood the phenomenon of
how you create your misery. Substitutes create misery.
For example, you wanted to love a woman but love is dangerous, unsocial, rebellious.
And who knows what might happen? So you settled for marriage. Now marriage is a
substitute for love. You will never be happy, you will be miserable. Of course you will
be comfortably miserable, conveniently miserable -- but miserable all the same. You
will have a certain security, a good bank balance, prestige, respect, but you will not be
happy. Look at your respectable people. They have all that they always thought would
help them, they have it. Money they have, power they have, prestige they have. But
look into their eyes -- they are deserts. Not a single flower blooms, there is no joy.
They are just dragging themselves somehow. They settled for a substitute.
Go and sit by the comer of a temple or a mosque and watch people coming and going.
Do you see any celebration? Do you see any real joy? Do you see any dance? -nothing! People just walk into the temple as part of their formal duty, and get out as
soon as they can. They have to fulfil a certain duty; they have to show society that
they are religious people -- it pays. But there is no joy. The temple is a substitute.
See people praying. Not a single tear comes to their eyes. See people praying. No
radiance is on their faces. Not even a ripple of dance is around them. And they go on
praying for their whole life. It is a sheer wastage of time and energy. They have
chosen a substitute. Beware of substitutes. Only then can you find God. God has no
substitute. God is the really real, the truth.
Now this small parable.
IMAM MUHAMMED BAQIR IS SAID TO HAVE RELATED THIS
ILLUSTRATIVE FABLE:
'FINDING I COULD SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF ANTS, I APPROACHED ONE
AND ENQUIRED, "WHAT IS GOD LIKE? DOES HE RESEMBLE THE ANT?"
'HE ANSWERED, "GOD! NO, INDEED -- WE HAVE ONLY A SINGLE STING,
BUT GOD, HE HAS TWO!"'
That's how all your religions and philosophies are -- God is just your magnified
ROOP, form. You have one sting, he has two. You live seventy years, he lives
eternally. You become old, he never becomes old. But the difference is of quantity, not
of quality. Your God is your projected, reformed, modified, decorated form. Your God
is you as you would like to be.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #4
Chapter title: Earth and Sky Apart
30 August 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7708300
ShortTitle:
SUFIS204
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 92 mins
The first question:
Question 1
WHY DID VAN GOGH KILL HIMSELF? WHY DID HEMINGWAY PUT A
SHOTGUN IN HIS MOUTH AND BLOW THE TOP OF HIS HEAD OFF? WHY
DO THEY POISON THEIR RIVERS, THEIR AIR AND THEIR OWN FOOD?
WHY DO THEY JUSTIFY IT ALL WITH THEIR REASONING, PSYCHOLOGY
AND LAWS? WHY DO THEY COME HERE FOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS, AND
WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MUCH COMPASSION FOR THEM? I AM SICK AND
TIRED OF THEM!
The question is from Prageet.
First, there are suicides and suicides. Each suicide has something unique about it -- as
each life has something unique about it. Your life is yours and your death is also going
to be yours. Sometimes it is possible that your life may not be yours, but it is not
possible that your death may not be yours.
Life can be anonymous. If you live with others, you can compromise too much, you
can imitate -- but death is always unique because death is alone. You die alone. There
is no society. They don't exist in your death. The crowd, the mass, is there when you
are alive, but when you die you die absolutely alone, utterly alone.
Death has a quality.
So sometimes it happens that a man may commit suicide because he has become tired
of the anonymous existence. He has become tired of all the compromises that one has
to make in order to live. That's why van Gogh committed suicide -- he was a rare man,
one of the greatest painters ever. But he had to make compromises every moment of
his life. He got tired of those compromises; he could no longer tolerate being part of
the crowd mind. He killed himself in order to be himself. He was only thirty-three or
something when he killed himself. If he had been in the East there would have been
another alternative: suicide or sannyas. These are the two alternatives which every
man who has some sense of life, of individuality, has to choose between.
In the West nothing like sannyas has been in existence. If you become a Christian
monk that is again a compromise; you still remain part of the society. Even if you go
out of the society you remain part of It. The society goes on controlling you -- it has a
remote control system. It does not allow you to really go out of it. You remain a
Christian, you remain a Catholic, even when you have moved to a monastery. It does
not make much difference.
In the East, sannyas has a totally different flavour. The moment you become a
sannyasin you are no longer a Hindu, you are no longer a Mohammedan, you are no
longer a Christian. The moment you become a sannyasin, you drop out of all
collectivities. You become yourself. You will be surprised to know that in the East
people don't commit suicide as much as in the West. And the difference is big -- too
big to be just accidental. In the East we have created a creative kind of suicide, that is
sannyas. You can still live, but you can live in your own way. Then the need for
suicide disappears, or becomes very much less.
In the West it always has happened that the unique individuals have to commit suicide.
The mediocre go on living, the unique have to commit suicide. A van Gogh, a
Hemingway. a Mayakovski, a Nijinsky -- these are unique individuals. Either they
have to commit suicide or they have to go mad -- the society drives them mad. The
society puts so much pressure on them that either they have to yield to the society and
become just anonymous, or they have to go mad, or they have to commit suicide. And
all are destructive alternatives.
Nietzsche went mad; that was his way of committing suicide. Nijinsky committed
suicide; that was his way of going mad. Nietzsche had the same quality as a Buddha.
Had he been in the East he would have become a Buddha, but the West does not give
that alternative at all. He had to go mad. Van Gogh had a unique quality of
tremendous intelligence, creativity. He could have moved on the path of sannyas and
samadhi, but there was no door open. He got tired; just going on living a compromise
was hurting too much. It was not worth it. One day he completed his painting -- the
painting that he had always wanted to do -- and that day he felt, 'Now there is no need
to make any compromise with anybody for any reason. I have done my paintings, I
have done my best. It is time to disappear.'
He had always wanted to paint a sunrise. He had painted sunrises for years, but still
something was missing and lacking and he would paint again and again. The day his
painting was complete and he was fulfilled and satisfied and contented that it had
happened -- that very moment it was absolutely clear to him that now there was no
need -- 'I was only waiting for this painting. I am fulfilled in it, I have bloomed. Now
why make compromises? For what?' He committed suicide.
He was not mad, he was simply not mediocre. His suicide was not a crime, his suicide
was simply a condemnation of your so-called society which asks for so many
compromises. Mediocre people are ready to compromise; they have nothing to lose.
In fact they feel very good being part of a crowd, of a mob, because in the crowd they
need not think about themselves as mediocre; all are just like them. They can lose
themselves in the crowd. They can lose themselves and forget themselves in the mass
mind, and in the mass mind they have no responsibility. They need not bother whether
they are intelligent or unintelligent; they need not bother whether they are asleep or
awakened.
But a man who has some soul in him will find it continuously heavy to go on
degrading himself, to go on compromising for small ordinary trivia, meaningless
things -- for bread and butter, for a house, a shelter, for clothes.
Van Gogh was very poor because his paintings wouldn't sell. His paintings were at
least a hundred years ahead of his time. That is always so. The greater a man's
intelligence, the bigger is the distance between the people that exist by his side and
the people for whom his painting, his poetry, his assertions, will be meaningful. He
comes before his time.
That's why Buddha's assertions are still relevant, still fresh; not rotten, not old. His
time is coming now. It is as if he came two thousand five hundred years before his
time.
Vincent van Gogh's paintings are now becoming great paintings; great appreciation
has arisen for him. He came a little early. They always do. His brother used to give
him enough money just to keep his body and soul together, because his paintings
wouldn't sell. So just enough money.... And van Gogh would eat for half the week and
for half the week he would fast to save money to paint.
Just think how difficult it was for him to live. Nobody would appreciate his painting.
Once it happened that his brother made an arrangement. He told a friend, 'You go and
purchase at least one painting. At least once in his life he should have the joy of
somebody purchasing his painting. You take money from me. Go and purchase a
painting.'
The friend went. Van Gogh was very happy. This was the first man who had come to
appreciate his painting. But soon he recognised the fact that the man was not
interested.... Van Gogh was thrilled! He was dancing and he was showing his
paintings, all the paintings that he had done. But the man was not interested, he was
just fulfilling a duty. He said, 'Anyone will do. You just give me any painting and take
this money.'
It hurt van Gogh even more. He threw the man out with his money and he said, 'I
suspect it is my brother behind it. He always wanted somebody to purchase my
painting and it seems he has sent you. You get out from here! I am not going to sell. I
wanted somebody to love my painting, to see what I have done, but you are not the
person. You don't have any perception, you don't have any aesthetic sense, you don't
know what paintings mean. You simply get out!'
So not a single painting was sold. Starving, fasting, he was painting three days, four
days a week. And for three, four days he would be able to eat. The day he completed
the painting that he always wanted to complete....
He was madly in love with the sun. The sun is the source of life. Maybe the sun was
his symbol for God, maybe through the sun he was searching for God. The day he
painted his sunrise, he committed suicide. This suicide is not a crime, it is simply a
shout against the mediocre society that we have created in the world. It is simply a
protest that for those who have life. this society is not worth living in. This society is
only for the mediocre. This society is only for those who really don't want to love,
who just want to drag.
But each suicide will have a different quality to it.
You ask why Hemingway committed suicide. Hemingway's suicide has another
flavour, different from van Gogh's. Hemingway's whole search was the search for
freedom. Birth happened; it was not your choice. You were thrown into life -- as the
existentialists say. You were thrown into it, it was not your choice. Nobody ever asked
you whether you wanted to be born or not. So birth is not freedom. It has already
happened.
The next most important thing is love, but that is also not possible to do. When it
happens, it happens; you cannot manage it, you cannot will it. If you want to love a
person just through will, it is impossible. It happens when it happens -- -suddenly you
are in love, That's why we use the phrase 'falling in love'. You 'fall' into it. But you
cannot will it; it comes from the unknown. It is just like birth. It is as if God manages
that you fall in love with this person; it is as if the decision comes from the blue. You
are not the decisive factor, you are more like a victim. You cannot do anything against
it. If it happens you have to go into it; if it does not happen you can do whatsoever
you want and it will not happen. Nobody can produce love on order.
And the most important three things in life are birth, love, death. Death is the only
thing that you can do something about -- you can commit suicide.
Hemingway's search was for freedom. He wanted to do something that HE had done.
He had not managed birth, he had not managed love, now there was only death. There
was only one thing which if you wanted to do, you could do. It would be your act, an
individual act, done by you.
Death has a mysterious quality about it; it is a very strange paradox. If you are
standing by the side of a small baby, just born, and if somebody asks you to say
something absolutely certain about the baby -- the baby is in his crib, asleep, relaxing
-- what can you say absolutely certainly? You can say only one thing: that he will die.
This is a very strange thing to say. Anything else is uncertain. He may love, he may
not love. He may succeed, he may fail. He may be a sinner, he may be a saint. All are
'maybes', there is nothing certain about anything. It is not possible to predict anything.
There is only one thing you can say -- and it looks very absurd at the side of a baby
who has just been born -- only one thing is absolutely certain: that he will die. This
prediction can be made, and your prediction is never going to be wrong.
So death has a certain quality of certainty about it -- it is going to happen. And at the
same time it has something absolutely uncertain about it too. One never knows when
it is going to happen. There is certainty that it is going to happen and uncertainty
about when it is going to happen. Both this certainty and uncertainty about death
make it a mystery, a paradox. If you go on living, it will happen -- but then again it
will come from out of the blue. You will not be the decisive factor. Birth happened,
love happened -- was death also to happen? That made Hemingway uneasy. He
wanted to do at least one thing in life to which he could have his own signature, about
which he could say 'This I did'. That's why he committed suicide. Suicide was an
exercise in freedom.
You cannot know anything about death unless you go into it. Hemingway's attitude
was that if it is going to happen then why be dragged into it? Why not go into it on
your own? It is going to happen. His whole life's concern was death, that's why he
became so interested in bullfights. Death was very close by. He was constantly.
attracted by the theme of death -- what it was. But you cannot know. Even if
somebody is dying in front of you, you don't know anything about death. You simply
know that the breathing has disappeared, that this man's eyes won't open again, that
this man will never speak again, that his heart is no longer beating -- that's all. But this
is nothing. How can you know about death from these things? The mystery remains a
mystery, you have not even touched it.
You can know it only by going into it. But if you are dragged into it there are more
possibilities of your becoming unconscious -- because you are being dragged into it.
Almost always people die unconsciously. Before death happens they become so afraid,
so very afraid, that a kind of coma surrounds them and protects them. It is a natural
anaesthetic. When you go for an operation, you need an anaesthetic -- and death is the
greatest operation there is: the soul and body will be torn apart. So nature has some
built-in mechanism -- before you start dying you go into a coma; all consciousness
disappears. In the first place your consciousness was not very much. Even while you
were alive, it was just a tiny flicker. When the wind of death comes, that flicker is
gone -- there is complete darkness.
Hemingway wanted to go into death fully conscious. It was a conscious exercise in
dying. But that is possible only through suicide or through samadhi. These are the
only two possibilities. You can die consciously in only two ways. You can commit
suicide; you can manage your own death. You can have your revolver ready,
contemplate it, put it to your chest or your head, pull the trigger yourself consciously,
see the explosion and see death. This is one possibility. It is a very destructive
possibility.
Another possibility is to go more and more into meditation, to attain to a state of
awareness that cannot be drowned by death. Then there is no need to commit suicide.
Then whenever death comes, let it come. You will be dying fully alert, aware,
watchful.
So it is suicide or sannyas, suicide or samadhi.
And in the West, sannyas and samadhi have not been available. That's why these two
very rare people committed suicide. And they have not been understood. People think
that they were kind of ill, neurotic, mad, morbid, unhealthy. They were not. I am not
saying that all people who commit suicide are the same. There are neurotic people
who will commit suicide. There are morbid people who are more concerned with
death than they are concerned with life, who enjoy destructiveness. They are
self-destructive mechanisms who go on poisoning themselves.
I'm not talking about all suicides -- but you have asked about these two. And there are
as many as people commit suicide. But these two are very rare. These two are very
potential. If Vincent van Gogh or Hemingway had been in the East or had had the
Eastern attitude, they would have flowered as great sannyasins.
And then you ask: WHY DO THEY POISON THEIR RIVERS, THEIR AIR AND
THEIR OWN FOOD? That is again creating a mass suicide very slowly.
When you live unintelligently, insensitively, you live such a dull kind of life that your
interest naturally starts moving towards death. That's why there are constant wars.
And the periods that you call days of peace are not much concerned with peace, they
are only preparations for a new war. So either you are in war or you prepare for war.
There are only two kinds of periods in history: actual fighting and preparation for the
fighting. There has never been a period of peace. The peace is absolutely false,
pretentious. Underneath the peace, underground, you are preparing for another war.
Why is there so much attraction for war? -- because only when people are dying do
they become a little alert. When there is danger you become a little alert. You don't
know how to be alert in any other way. That's why when there is war you will see
people's faces more alive. Something is happening. Otherwise nothing happens. It is
the same old tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. Every day
you get up and the same life starts in the same rut. Every night you go to bed and you
have again ended a repetition of a day. And you can be certain that tomorrow you will
do the same again. When war happens, things are no longer a routine; suddenly there
is news in the air; something new is happening. So people are destructive -- they
create war.
And they create many kinds of war. They have been constantly fighting with nature.
And nature is our life, nature is our very source. But even a man like Bertrand Russell
writes a book with a title, CONQUEST OF NATURE. Conquest? the very idea is
aggressive. It is as if we are against nature or nature is against us. We are one. We are
nature. The trees are nature -- are people not nature? The air is nature and the sun and
moon are nature -- are the eyes and the smiles and the tears not nature?
Just as the earth goes on growing into trees, so it goes on growing into people too. It
is the same nature, it is the same ecology, it is one whole -- and it is interdependent.
And everything depends on everything else.
But the Western mind has been very aggressive. Nature has to be conquered. You have
to fight amongst yourselves, you have to fight with nature; not only that, you have to
fight with yourself. These are the three fights: man fights with other men, man fights
with nature, man fights with himself. When man fights with other men it is politics.
When man fights with nature it is science. And when man fights with himself it is
religion. This is a foolish kind of approach -- as if the whole thing depends on
fighting.
Whom do you call the religious man? -- the one who fights with himself continuously,
repressing, cutting his life into fragments, choosing, judging, destroying, becoming
split and schizophrenic. This is the same attitude -- an aggressive, violent attitude. It
shows in politics because it is the same man. It shows in religion because it is the
same man. It shows in what you do with nature.
You ask me: WHY DO THEY POISON THEIR RIVERS, THEIR AIR AND THEIR
OWN FOOD? -- because they are poisoned with violence. So whatsoever they do
becomes poisonous. They are suicidal because they don't know what life is and they
don't know how to live it. They don't know the joy and the celebration. They don't
know that it is a gift, that it is a great gift. They don't know gratitude. So they go on
being destructive in every possible way.
The Western attitude has been growing more and more towards death and every day it
is bringing death closer to this planet. Any day this planet can explode into utter
annihilation. The whole intelligence -- technology, science, politics, everything -- is
directed towards one thing: how to commit a global suicide.
But it is the same man. I would like you to become just the contrary: the man who
loves, who does not fight; the man who loves himself. That's why my religion is a
love for yourself. The man who loves himself loves others. Then there will be a totally
different kind of politics; it will be based on love. The man who loves himself and
loves other people, loves nature too -- because trees are people, birds are people,
animals are people. Then there will be a different kind of science in the world. But the
science has to come from religion, because religion is the deepest core. Because you
hate yourself, you hate others, you hate nature. Those are just reverberations of the
original hate that you go on carrying with yourself.
WHY DO THEY JUSTIFY IT ALL WITH THEIR REASONING, PSYCHOLOGY
AND LAWS? What else can they do? One has to justify everything. In fact, when you
are doing something wrong, you have to justify it immediately, otherwise you yourself
will become aware of the wrong that you have done. And you will be a criminal in
your own eyes. To avoid that, you have to find rationalisations.
Once a scientist was staying with me. I love my garden to be a jungle, so I had a
beautiful jungle around my house. The scientist said to me, 'Are you aware of what
you are doing? If you allow these trees to grow so close to the house they will run
over the house. These are dangerous things. There is a constant fight between man
and trees. If you don't keep them away, within years their roots will enter into your
walls and they will destroy your house.' He said, 'I hate trees.'
That has been the attitude of man: destroy. If you take that attitude then everything
becomes inimical -- even poor trees, innocent trees. And there is some fact to it, so
you can base your reasoning on it. Yes, it is true that if trees are left to grow
completely in freedom then they will run over your towns and your houses. That's true,
it is factual. But to base your whole life on that small fact and make it a philosophy, is
wrong.
The other thing is as much a fact as this -- we exist with the trees. Destroy all the trees
and you will die. You breathe oxygen in, trees exhale oxygen. You exhale carbon
dioxide, trees inhale carbon dioxide. So when you are surrounded by trees you are
more alive. It is not just poetry. 'When you go into a jungle and a great jubilation
comes to your heart, you suddenly feel more alive -- as if the greenery makes you also
green. It is not just poetry, it is pure science. It is because there is more oxygen, more
life throbbing all around, more vitality. And when you breathe that oxygen in, your
blood is purified; you can throw the toxins out more easily and you live at the
maximum.
So there is a partnership with the trees: they take your poison in and purify it and
create oxygen for you; you take oxygen in, you use the oxygen and throw the carbon
dioxide outside. Trees use carbon dioxide as their food. So there is an absolute
partnership. Man cannot live without trees and trees cannot live without man.
Animals are needed for trees and trees are needed for animals. They are not separate;
they are part of one rhythm. This too is a fact. And life should not avoid this. One has
to understand the totality of it; and one has to live in such a way that no one fact
becomes, or pretends to become, the whole. There is no need to destroy. There is no
need to fight. That is the approach of Tao, the approach of Sufism, Zen.
There is a famous Zen story....
A king told his old carpenter that he would like a certain table. The old man said, 'I am
very old and my son is yet not ready. He is learning by and by. But I will try, I will do
my best. Give me time.'
For three days the old man disappeared in the forest. After three days he came back.
The king asked, 'It takes three days to bring a little wood for the table?'
The old carpenter said, 'Sometimes it takes three days, sometimes three months. And
sometimes you may not find wood for three years. It is a difficult art.'
The king was puzzled. He said, 'Explain it. 'What do you mean? Explain in detail.'
And the man said, 'First I have to go on a fast -- because only when I am on a fast
does my mind by and by slow down. When my mind slows down, all thoughts
disappear. all aggression disappears. Then I am no longer violent, then there is pure
compassion and love -- a different vibe. When I feel that vibe of no-mind, then I go
into the forest, because only through that vibe can I find the right tree. With
aggression, how can you find the right tree?' And I have to ask the trees themselves
whether one of them is willing to become a table. I go, I look around, and when I feel
that this tree is willing.... That willingness can be felt only when I have no mind. So
there is fasting, meditating -- and when I become absolutely empty, I simply roam
around with the trees to have a feel. 'When I feel that this tree fits, I sit by its side and
ask its permission -- "I am going to cut a branch from you. Are you willing?" If the
tree says yes wholeheartedly only then do I cut -- otherwise who am I to cut its
branch?'
Now this is a totally different approach. There is no fight between the man and the
tree, there is a friendship. The man tries to fall en rapport with the trees, and he asks
their permission. This is absurd for a Western mind. The Western mind says, 'What
nonsense are you talking about? Asking a tree? Have you gone crazy? And how can
the tree say yes or no?' But now even Western science is gradually becoming aware
that the tree can say yes or no. Now sophisticated instruments exist which can detect
the moods of a tree -- whether the tree is willing, whether the tree is unwilling,
whether the tree is happy or unhappy? Now subtle instruments have been developed -just like a cardiogram. You can have a cardiogram of the tree. Electronic instruments
can detect the moods of the tree.
When a woodcutter comes around the tree the tree is shaken with fear, is sad, is afraid,
clings to her life. No Taoist will cut a tree in that state, no, not at all. If the tree is not
willing, then who are we? When the tree on its own is ready to share, then only can it
be cut.
Now this table will have a different quality to it. It has been a gift from the tree; it has
not been taken away. The tree has not been robbed, it has not been conquered. It will
not be difficult to understand that this table will have a different vibe to it. It will have
something sacred about it. If you put this table in your room you will create a certain
kind of space around the table which will not be possible with other tables. It will be
there befriending you because you befriended it. It will be there as part of your family,
not as a limb cut from an enemy.
The Western mind has been too aggressive against itself and against nature. It has
created schizophrenia against people, it has created politics, war, and it has created the
ecological crisis.
But things have gone now to the extreme. Either man has to turn back and drop the
Western aggressive attitude or man has to get ready to say goodbye to this planet. This
planet cannot tolerate man any more; it has already tolerated him for long enough.
WHY DO THEY COME HERE FOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS AND WHY DO
YOU HAVE SO MUCH COMPASSION FOR THEM?
They need compassion because only through compassion will they learn compassion.
There is no other way to learn it. If they can feel my compassion and my love, they
will start being compassionate and being loving. It is only in the milieu of love that
one learns love. I am just creating a climate here. It is not a teaching, it is a climate.
And I don't have anything else to give. To whosoever comes I can give my love and
my compassion -- because that is all that I have.
And Prageet says: I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THEM.
If you are sick and tired of them then you are one of them. That very attitude of being
sick and tired is violent.
Why this question? Such a long question has arisen in Prageet's mind, and this is his
first question. He has been here for almost two years. Why has such a long question
arisen? He has a very violent mind. He is a good groupleader, but a very violent one.
He runs the gestalt and the bio-energetic groups and he goes on beating people. And
he had never asked this question up to now. But just a few days ago one guy beat him
really hard. Hence the question.
If you are tired and sick of them, you are one of them. Feel compassion, feel love.
Help people through love and compassion. I know that sometimes you have to be hard
too, just because of compassion, but that is another quality of hardness. Sometimes
you have to push their buttons, but when you push their buttons, naturally they can go
to the extreme -- they can hit you. A real groupleader is always in danger. That is the
risk. You provoke people to bring their negativities to the surface, and when those
negativities come to the surface, naturally you can be one of the targets. You are in
danger.
But a groupleader will accept it with gratitude. When somebody hits a groupleader, he
will bow down to him and say thank you -- because that is what he wanted. He was
creating a situation in which the anger could bubble up and burst. Once that anger has
gone, the man will have a totally different kind of energy. The group process is a
catharsis; it is a process of taking the pus out of your system. But when you are taking
pus out of a system, sometimes a few drops of pus may fall upon your clothes -- that's
natural. When you do surgery your hands will be bloody and you will need a good
bath after it.
Don't be angry. Otherwise you become part of them.
Now Prageet says, 'I don't want to lead any groups nor do I want to rolf people.
Maybe I could work in the garden?' No, not at all. I love my trees!
The second question:
Question 2
IN ANSWERING MY QUESTION, YOU KEPT REFERRING TO ME AS 'SHE'. SO
YOU HAVE FOUND ME OUT. EVEN GROWING A BEARD, I COULD NOT
DECEIVE YOU. ONLY ONE SMALL REQUEST: MAY I KEEP THE SWAMI IN
THE FRONT OF MY NAME?
Sorry, Ma Anand Sucheta. I goofed again.
Yes, it has happened. Just the other day Swami Anand Sucheta asked a question and I
continued to refer to him as she.
Now there are two other Suchetas, both are she. One Sucheta is he, two Suchetas are
she. They have also written questions to me. But the swami who asked the question
has really understood the point of it. 'Swami' was clearly there, 'swami' was written on
the question -- but for two reasons I was goofing. One was that Anand Sucheta really
has the heart of a woman. By growing a beard it makes no difference.
There is a biological he and she and there is a psychological he and she. Sometimes
when I am giving sannyas to a person I have to think twice whether to call him ma or
swami. Not to create an embarrassing situation for you I go on giving swami and ma
according to your biological body. But sometimes it is very clear that to call this
person 'swami' seems absolutely wrong. He has such a feminine heart and his path is
going to be love. He is so receptive.
Just the other night Prabha was here. Now he has a heart of a woman. He is a very big
man physically, but he has a very, very soft vulnerable heart of a woman -- a very
loving heart. His psychological being is a she. And that is really more important
because my work is concerned not with your biology but with your psychology.
But I am happy that Anand Sucheta understood the point. He says: IN ANSWERING
MY QUESTION. YOU KEPT REFERRING TO ME AS 'SHE'. SO YOU HAVE
FOUND ME OUT. EVEN GROWING A BEARD I COULD NOT DECEIVE YOU.
ONLY ONE SMALL REQUEST: MAY I KEEP THE SWAMI IN FRONT OF MY
NAME?
That you can go on keeping. But go on knowing that you are feminine. And be joyous
about it -- because my understanding is that the feminine mind is closer to God than
the masculine mind. The masculine mind is the Western mind and the feminine mind
is the Eastern mind. The masculine mind is aggressive and the feminine mind is
receptive. And God comes easily to those who can receive him -- like a womb; to
those who can become pregnant with him.
Go on keeping your swami name. That is for others. But for your own self go on
remembering. Become more and more feminine. Allow your femininity to take
possession of you.
Secondly, although Swami Anand Sucheta asked the question, the question was more
relevant to one of the Ma Anand Suchetas. She did not ask it but really she should
have asked it. It was more relevant.
So when sometimes I goof, I goof for reasons. Try to find out why. Meditate over it.
When I make a mistake, meditate over it and you will always be enriched by it.
The third question:
Question 3
EVERY TIME YOU COME AND GO IN THE LECTURE, I AM WORRIED YOU
MAY MISS A STEP AND FALL.
P.S. YOU LOOK SO DRUNK.
That's true. But I have been drunk for so long that you need not be afraid. For
twenty-five years I have been that way. In the beginning it really was difficult to walk.
I was very much afraid myself that I might fall any moment. Somehow the body had
become so distant and there was such a gap -- earth and sky apart. It took time for me
to settle down. Although everything has settled down, that drunkenness is still there.
This is God-drunkenness. Once you have drunk from the spring of the divine you are
never in a state of being undrunk. Once is enough. A drop of it is enough to drown
you forever. You need not drink again and again; you will never become thirsty again.
I can understand your question, but don't be worried. Somehow.... I call it 'somehow'
because I am not managing it. I cannot manage it because I am not there to manage it;
it has managed itself. Somehow I remain drunk and I remain aware.
Sufis have a particular principle about it -- it will be meaningful to understand it. They
call it an oscillation between the two states, AHWAL. The two states are BAKA and
FANA: individuality and dissolution of the individuality. Between these two there has
to be a kind of rhythm, a synchronisation. There are people who are in their BAKA,
but they don't know anything about FANA. Then there are people who are in their
FANA, but they forget how to come back to HAKA. Both are lopsided.
A kind of balance is needed between the two -- drunkenness and awareness. One has
to be drunkenly aware, or alertly drunk. That is the highest alchemy -- where
opposites meet and they become one. That is the greatest synthesis.
It is said of al-Junaid, Master of al-Hillaj Mansoor, that he used to impose disciplines
to establish a rhythm between these two polarities. It is reported that the Master once
ordered a disciple, al-Shibli... al-Shibli later on became a great Master himself. This
man, al-Junaid, created many Masters. He had a great creative energy to create
Masters. He was one of the Masters of Masters. When al-Shibli attained his satori. his
samadhi, his FANA, he became incapable of coming back to the BAKA. He was so
drunk, so lost, that the Master was very angry with him.
He said, 'You listen, Shibli! First you were clinging to your BAKA state. Now you
have moved to the other and now you cling to it. Clinging remains. Clinging has to go.
one has to be more liquid. One has to be capable of moving from one to the other
easily, smoothly -- just like a pendulum that swings from left to right, right to left.
Without any hitch, hesitation, without any clinging, one has to attain to that smooth
movement.'
But al-Shibli could not follow. Then the Master said, 'If your self-discipline is not
sufficient to restrain your mystic states, AHWAL, it is better that you admit yourself
to a mad asylum for a time. '
This is strange advice from a Master -- 'Go to a madhouse, admit yourself, and stay
there until you attain a discipline by which you can be alert and drunk together.'
This has been one of the greatest problems on the path of the ultimate ecstasy, and
you will find this phenomenon in many ways. You see Buddha. Buddha is drunk and
alert together. Ramakrishna is not alert. He is drunk. Something of the balance is
missing. If you ask me, I cannot tell you to make Ramakrishna a goal. When
Ramakrishna would get into his FANA state, for days he would remain almost
unconscious. Once he remained unconscious in a coma for5 six days. And when he
came out of it he started crying, and he started asking God, 'Take me back. Let me go
into that again.' He became like a child. It is better than the state of BAKA -- this
ecstasy is good -- but there is a higher stage to it. That is Buddha's state. He is drunk
and yet alert. One has never seen him unconscious. He has managed the ultimate
synthesis.
The way of ecstasy is also the way of sobriety, because it is the science of the
knowledge of states. As Sheik ibn Ajiba has said, 'A drunkenness with consciousness
of the state is higher than drunkenness with forgetfulness. Ecstasy is not the goal but
the means; nevertheless an absolutely essential means.'
So you need not be afraid. I am drunk and alert together. My drunkenness takes care
that I don't become so much alert that I am fixed in the HAKA. My awareness takes
care that I don't become fixed in the state of FANA. They help each other like the two
wings of a bird -- they are opposite and yet complementary. With one wing you
cannot fly, you will need both wings.
And that is my teaching. My whole effort here is to make you alert and drunk together.
Hence I go on telling you to dance and abandon yourself in dance, and I go on
teaching you ways of meditation, awareness, vipassana -- so that both can grow
together. The day you are drunk, suddenly you will find a light burning in you which
keeps you alert. And certainly, as Ajiba says, a drunkenness with awareness is higher
than a drunkenness with forgetfulness.
The fourth question:
Question 4
DURING THE DAY WHEN I AM BOUNCING AROUND, I COMPLETELY LOSE
MYSELF. I AM ENJOYING, BUT WHERE DOES MEDITATION COME IN?
The very enjoyment is what meditation is all about.
The question is from Vidya. Now she is hankering for some misery. She is enjoying
but she cannot enjoy enjoying; she wants to create some trouble for herself. It is very
difficult to be really happy and happy with happiness. Once you are happy you start
looking for some trouble. You cannot believe that you can be happy, that you can
really be happy. Something must be wrong. When you are miserable you are perfectly
happy -- that is your state, you know it, you are well acquainted with it; that is your
identity. When you are miserable you are happy, because you know that this is how
you are -- but when you are happy then you start becoming miserable. You cannot
trust happiness, it is so unknown.
That's what meditation is: to enjoy, to celebrate.
Hoping to develop his son's character, a father once gave him a penny and a quarter as
he was leaving for Sunday school. 'Now, Peter, you put whichever one you want to in
the offering plate,' he said.
When the boy returned, his father asked which coin he had given. Peter answered,
'Well, just before they sent around the plate the preacher said, "The Lord loveth a
cheerful giver," and I knew I could give the penny a lot more cheerfully than I could
give the quarter, so I gave it.'
I perfectly agree with the boy. Whatsoever is cheerful is good. Whatsoever makes you
cheerful is religious. Let cheerfulness be your only religion, the only law. Let there be
no other law. Just enjoy and enjoy tremendously, totally. Meditation will come like a
shadow. It is meditation coming; it is the sound of the footsteps of meditation coming
to you.
The fifth question:
Question 5
IT IS A LONG, LONG JOURNEY BETWEEN THE PREPARATION AND THE
ULTIMATE; BETWEEN THE STATE OF ROBOPATHOLOGY AND
ENLIGHTENMENT. MUST ONE SUFFER DURING THE PERIOD OF THE
'JOURNEY' OR IS THERE A POSSIBILITY OF PEACE? PLEASE EXPLAIN.
It depends on you. It depends on what attitude you take about it. Waiting can become
great joy if you trust that it is going to happen, if you trust that it is coming closer
every moment. If you trust that it has already started happening because you have
started moving towards it, then each moment that passes w make you more and more
joyous. The home is coming closer.
But you can be very miserable if you take the. attitude -- 'How long do I have to wait?
How far is the goal? Why have I to wait so long? Why have others reached? Why are
others reaching before me?' Then you can create a thousand and one problems for
yourself and you can get miserable. And remember, the law is that the more miserable
you get in your waiting, the longer the waiting will be -- because God cannot happen
in a miserable mind. The happier the waiting, the closer you are coming. If your
waiting can be your total joy, God will happen this very moment -- no time gap is
needed. It all depends on your patience.
But when I say patience, I don't mean a negative quality, I mean a joyous patience -thrilled, expectant. It is going to happen! When it is going to happen is not the point -it is going to happen.
It all depends on how you interpret. Interpretation is a process that has to be
understood very deeply. You can see a rose bush and you can start counting the thorns.
If you count the thorns, there are millions. And in that very counting you will become
incapable of seeing the rose. Counting the thorns, being hurt by the thorns, your hands
will be bloody. You will be angry, you will be frustrated, you will be in despair -- and
your eyes will not be capable of seeing the rose. How can you see the rose with so
many thorns? Thorns will be floating in your eyes. Your eyes will be covered by
thorns; you will not be able to see the rose. Even if you have a glimpse of the rose you
will not be able to trust. How can the rose happen? You know only thorns, you know
only the pain of the thorns. The rose seems to be an impossibility. Maybe it is a dream,
maybe you have imagined it, maybe it is a hallucination or something. But in the very
nature of things it cannot happen -- it is so contrary to the experience of thorns. I hen
it becomes impossible. By and by you will become oblivious of the rose. Then it no
longer exists for you.
But if you look at the rose, if you feel the rose, if you become rosy with the rose, if
you allow the fragrance to move into your innermost core, if you feel the wetness of
the flower, the dewdrops on it, the sunrays dancing, if you see the utter joy of the
flower, the incomparable beauty of it -- in that very vision of the rose the thorns start
receding. They may be on the bush but they don't exist for you. They can't exist for
you; your eyes are full of the rose. And when your eyes are really full of the rose -not only your eyes but your heart too -- then you will be surprised to find that the
thorns don't matter. Even if there are ten thousand thorns for one rose, only the rose
matters, the thorns don't matter. Your whole outlook has changed and you will look at
thorns with a new vision. You will see the thorns not as enemies of the rose but as
bodyguards of the rose. They are guarding it; they are friends; they protect -otherwise it will not be possible for the rose to survive. Those thorns are a must.
Once you have started seeing the beauty of life, ugliness starts disappearing. It
becomes at the most a shadow. If you start looking at life with joy, sadness starts
disappearing. You cannot have both heaven and hell together, you can have only one.
It is your choice. And you can have it any moment. If you want hell, you can have it
right now. If you want the heaven, you can have that too. It is absolutely your
responsibility; it is your choice.
It depends how you interpret.
I would like to tell you a few anecdotes....
Thirty nuns arrived in purgatory. 'Now girls,' said the angel in charge. 'I want every
one of you who was ever sexually involved in any kind of relationship on the earth to
stand up -- and remember, no fibbing. I have ways of checking up on you.'
Sheepishly twenty-nine of the nuns stood up, but the thirtieth remained seated.
The angel nodded and put in a phone call to the devil. 'Satan,' he said, 'I'm sending
down thirty nuns to you -- and I advise you to be particularly careful of one. She's
stone deaf!'
Now this is your interpretation. This shows more about the mind of the angel than
anything about the woman who has kept silent and has not stood up.
Another scene....
The Pearly Gates. St. Peter interviewing a new arrival. St. Peter: Name?
New Arrival: Melvin.
St. Peter: Did you ever gamble, drink, or smoke when you were on earth?
Melvin: No.
St. Peter: Did you ever steal, lie, cheat, or swear?
Melvin: No.
St. Peter: Were you promiscuous?
Melvin: No.
St. Peter: Tell me what kept you there so long?
This shows the mind of St. Peter, nothing about Melvin.
The third.... 'Rabbi Jacobs, I need fifty dollars to get out of debt,' sobbed Gottlieb. 'I
keep praying to God to help, but he has not sent it!'
'Don't lose faith,' said the rabbi. 'Keep praying.'
After Gottlieb left his house, the rabbi felt sorry for him. 'I don't make much money'
he thought, 'but that poor man needs it. I will give him twenty-five dollars out of my
own pocket.'
A week later, the rabbi stopped Gottlieb and said, 'Here God sent this to you!'
Back in his home, Gottlieb bowed his head, 'Thank you, Lord!' he said, 'But next time
you send money, don't send it through Rabbi Jacobs -- that crook kept half of it!'
It all depends on you, on how you look at things. You can see each day surrounded by
two nights or you can see each night surrounded by two days. And it really makes a
lot of difference. Let your waiting be joyous. You are waiting for God. Let it be a song
in your heart. Let it be prayerful. Let it be a celebration. Only celebration is sacred.
Just the other day I was reading a statement of a German philosopher, Martin
Heidegger. He says, 'I have not come across anything in the world which can be called
sacred.' Now this man must have lived a very poor life, an utterly poor life, if he could
not name, could not vouch for, could not be a witness to a single thing that he could
call sacred. His life must have been one of utter frustration. He has not known any
song, he has not known any joy. He has not seen a smile on a child's face, he has not
seen tears. He has not heard the birds singing and he has not seen roses and lotuses
flowering, and he has not looked at the stars. He has missed.
The whole of life is sacred.
Once it happened that Buddha asked one of his disciples, 'Can you find anything
which is worthless in life? If you can, then bring it.' The disciple thought for many
days and Bud&a enquired every day, 'What is happening? Have you not yet found
anything worthless?' And after a month or two the disciple came and he said, 'Sorry. I
looked all around. I looked very hard. I could not sleep because you had put a
question and I had to find the answer. But I could not find anything worthless.'
Then Buddha said, 'Now another task. Find anything which has worth. How many
days will you take for it? You took months for the first.' And the disciple laughed. He
said, 'No need to take any time.' He just took a straw from the ground and gave it to
Buddha. And he said, 'This is enough proof. This has worth.'
Buddha blessed the disciple and he said, 'This is how one should look at life. This is
the right attitude -- SAMYAK DRUSHTI, right vision.' And Buddha said, 'I am happy
with you -- that you took months and still you could not find anything worthless. You
could not find a single instance of something meaningless. And now for the
meaningful, for that which has worth, you have not taken even a single second. Yes,
this is how it is. The whole life is sacred.'
Buddha has lived a rich life, spiritually rich. Heidegger must have lived in misery.
How can you say that life has nothing sacred in it? Each moment is sacred. But you
need the eyes to see that sacredness. God is not missing from existence; only your
vision is not yet tuned to it.
You ask: IT IS A LONG, LONG JOURNEY BETWEEN THE PREPARATION AND
THE ULTIMATE.... The length of that journey depends on you. It can be long, very
long; it may not be so long. It may be very short. The goal depends on you -- how
long is not a fixed phenomenon. It cannot be measured. It becomes long if you look
through misery, anguish, anxiety, antagonism. If your eyes are full of sadness, you
create a long distance. If your eyes are full of joy, it is here, it is now, it is this.
The sixth question:
Question 6
OSHO.... YOU ARE SO CRAZY!!! HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE TOTALLY
CRAZY?
Just far out!!!
And the last question:
Question 7
BELOVED MASTER, HAS IT HAPPENED? HAS IT FINALLY HAPPENED? IS
THAT YOU INSIDE MY HEART, SO CLEAR AND CONSTANTLY WITH ME
NOW?
Yes, Divya. It has happened. But don't grab it -- otherwise it can disappear again. Let
it be there, but don't become greedy -- otherwise out of your greed you can crush it.
Let it be there but don't take it for granted. The moment you take it for granted, it
disappears. It is there, it has happened.
It is going to happen to all as it has happened to you. But remember, it is very fragile,
it is very subtle. You cannot keep it in a fist. The moment you close, you kill it. If you
remain open, it will be there. Never expect it to be there and it will be there. If you
start expecting then you create hindrances.
Yes, it has happened. But now you will have to be even more alert not to destroy it. It
is not so hard -- when it has not happened it is not so hard, the work is not so hard.
The real work starts when it starts happening, because then you have to be very, very
careful and very conscious. A single moment of unconsciousness and you can destroy
it.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #5
Chapter title: Layer Upon Layer
31 August 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7708310
ShortTitle:
SUFIS205
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 96 mins
THE SUFI MASTER, AJNABI SAID, 'WRITE TO MULLA FIROZ AND TELL
HIM THAT I HAVE NO TIME TO ENGAGE HIM IN CORRESPONDENCE, AND
THEREFORE HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO HIS LETTER.'
THE DISCIPLE, AMINI, SAID, 'IS IT YOUR INTENTION TO ANNOY HIM
WITH THIS LETTER?'
AJNABI SAID, 'HE HAS BEEN ANNOYED BY SOME OF MY WRITINGS. THIS
ANNOYANCE HAS CAUSED HIM TO WRITE TO ME. MY PURPOSE IN
WRITING THE PASSAGE WHICH ANGERS HIM WAS TO ANGER SUCH AS
HE.'
AMINI SAID, 'AND THIS LETTER WILL ANGER HIM FURTHER?'
AJNABI SAID, 'YES. WHEN HE WAS ENRAGED AT WHAT I WROTE, HE DID
NOT OBSERVE HIS OWN ANGER, WHICH WAS MY INTENTION. HE
THOUGHT THAT HE WAS OBSERVING ME, WHEREAS HE WAS ONLY
FEELING ANGRY. NOW I WRITE AGAIN, TO AROUSE HIS ANGER, SO THAT
HE WILL SEE THAT HE IS ANGRY. THE OBJECTIVE IS FOR THE MAN TO
REALISE THAT MY WORK IS A MIRROR IN WHICH HE SEES HIMSELF.'
AMINI SAID, 'THE PEOPLE OF THE ORDINARY WORLD ALWAYS REGARD
THOSE WHO CAUSE ANGER AS ILL-INTENTIONED.'
AJNABI SAID, 'THE CHILD MAY REGARD THE ADULT WHO TRIES TO
REMOVE A THORN FROM HIS HAND AS ILL-INTENTIONED. IS THAT A
JUSTIFICATION FOR TRYING TO PREVENT THE CHILD FROM GROWING
UP?'
AMINI SAID, 'AND IF THE CHILD HARBOURS A GRUDGE AGAINST THE
ADULT WHO REMOVES THE THORN?'
AJNABI SAID, 'THE CHILD DOES NOT REALLY HARBOUR THAT GRUDGE,
BECAUSE SOMETHING IN HIM KNOWS THE TRUTH.'
AMINI ASKED HIM, 'BUT WHAT HAPPENS IF HE NEVER GETS TO KNOW
HIMSELF, AND YET CONTINUES TO IMAGINE THAT OTHERS ARE
MOTIVATED BY PERSONAL FEELINGS?'
AJNABI SAID, 'IF HE NEVER GETS TO KNOW HIMSELF, IT MAKES NO
DIFFERENCE AS TO WHAT HE THINKS OF OTHER PEOPLE, BECAUSE HE
CAN NEVER HAVE ANY APPRECIATION OF WHAT OTHERS ARE REALLY
LIKE.'
AMINI ASKED, 'IS IT NOT POSSIBLE, INSTEAD OF AROUSING ANGER A
SECOND TIME, TO EXPLAIN THAT THE ORIGINAL WRITING WAS
COMPOSED FOR THIS PURPOSE, AND TO INVITE MULLA TO REVIEW HIS
PREVIOUS FEELINGS?'
AJNABI SAID, 'IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO THIS, BUT IT WILL HAVE NO EFFECT.
RATHER IT WILL HAVE AN ADVERSE EFFECT. IF YOU TELL THE MAN
YOUR REASON HE WILL IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE EXCUSING YOURSELF,
AND THIS WILL AROUSE IN HIM SENTIMENTS WHICH ARE HARMFUL
ONLY TO HIM. THUS, BY EXPLAINING, YOU ARE ACTUALLY ACTING TO
HIS DETRIMENT.'
AMINI SAID, 'ARE THERE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE -- THAT MAN
MUST LEARN THROUGH REALISING HIS OWN STATE, AND THAT HIS
STATE CANNOT BE EXPLAINED TO HIM?'
AJNABI SAID, 'THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. BUT IF THERE WERE ENOUGH
EXCEPTIONS TO MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO THE WORLD, WE WOULD
NOT BY NOW HAVE ANY MULLA FIROZES LEFT.'
MAN'S being is very simple, but his personality is not. The personality is very
complex. The personality is like an onion -- there are many layers of conditioning,
corruption, poisoning. Hidden behind many layers -- what Sufis call filters -- is man's
simple being. But that simple being is behind so many filters that you cannot see it.
And hidden behind these many filters, you cannot see the world either -- because
whatsoever reaches you is corrupted by the filters before it reaches you. Nothing ever
reaches you as it is; you go on missing it. There are many interpreters in between.
You see something. First your eyes and your senses falsify. Then your ideology, your
religion, your society, your church -- they falsify. Then your emotions -- they falsify.
And so on and so forth. By the time it reaches to you it has almost nothing of the
original, or so little that it makes no difference. You see something only if your filters
allow it, and the filters don't allow much.
Scientists agree with the Sufis. Scientists say we see only two per cent of reality. Only
two per cent! Ninety-eight per cent is missed. When you are listening to me you will
hear only two per cent of what has been told, of what has been said. Ninety-eight per
cent will be lost. and when the ninety-eight per cent is lost, that two per cent is out of
context. It is as if you have taken two pages from a novel, at random -- one from here,
one from there -- and then you start reconstructing the whole novel from these two
pages. Ninety-eight pages are missing. You have no inkling what they were; you don't
even know that they were. You have only two pages and you reconstruct the whole
novel again. This reconstruction is your invention. It is not discovery of truth, it is
your imagination.
And there is an inner neCessity to fill the gaps. Whenever you see that two things are
unrelated, the mind has an inner urgency to relate them. Otherwise it feels very uneasy.
So you invent a link, you fix those loose things with a link, you bridge them. And you
go on inventing a world that is not there.
So before we can enter into this small but immensely valuable dialogue between the
Master and the disciple, you will have to understand these layers, these filters.
Gurdjieff used to call these filters 'buffers'. They protect you against reality. They
protect your lies, they protect your dreams, they protect your projections. They don't
allow you to come into contact with reality because the very contact is going to be
shattering, shocking. Man lives through lies.
Frederick Nietzsche is reported to have said, 'Please don't take the lies away from
humanity, otherwise man will not be able to live. Man lives through lies. Don't take
the fictions away, don't destroy the myths. Don't tell the truth because man cannot live
by truth.' And he is right about ninety-nine point nine per cent of people. But what
kind of life can there be through lies? It will be a big lie itself. And what kind of
happiness is possible through lies? There is no possibility; hence humanity is in
misery. With truth is bliss; with lies there is only misery and nothing else.
But we go on protecting those lies. Those lies are comfortable, but they keep you
protected against bliss, against truth, against God.
Sufis say that man is exactly like an onion. And religion is the art of how to peel the
onion and come to it's innermost core. And what is the innermost core of an onion?
Have you ever peeled an onion? You go on peeling one layer. another layer, and
another, and so on and so forth. Then a point comes when the last layer is taken off
and only emptiness is left in your hand. That is FANA. If you go on peeling your
being, the last layer will be of being -- BAKA -- and beyond that will be emptiness -FANA.
So you can think in this way: at the very innermost core there is emptiness, pure sky,
nothingness, FANA. The first layer around FANA is that of BAKA, individuality -what religions call the self, ATMAN, the soul. But the soul is already a step away
from your being. The self is already distant from your being. Buddha has the right
word for it. He calls it ANATTA, no-self. Your innermost being is a non-being.
Nothing is there, or only nothing is. The first layer, the first fence that surrounds it, is
BAKA, individuality.
This is your true and simple being: non-being surrounded by being, defined by being.
The real core is empty but the emptiness has to be defined by something -- otherwise
there will be no division between you and anything else. So a thin. a very thin, layer
of being divides you. But that being is also a circumference not the centre. At the
centre is FANA, dissolution, disappearance. Even at the point of BAKA, individuality,
you don't meet God, you are still there. Very little is left of you, but there is still just a
thin line -- even that has to disappear in FANA. Then you enter God.
Start from the other end. Start peeling the onion.
The first layer is made of corrupted physical senses. Never for a single moment think
that your physical senses are as they should be -- they are not. They have been trained.
You see things it your society allows you to see them. You hear things if your society
allows you to hear them. You touch things if your society allows you to touch them.
Man has lost many of his senses -- for example, smell. Man has almost lost smell. Just
see a dog and his capacity to smell -- how sensitive is his nose! Man seems to be very
poor. What has happened to man's nose? Why can't he smell so deeply as a dog or as a
horse? The horse can smell for miles. The dog has an immense memory of smells.
Man has no memory. Something is blocking the nose.
Those who have been working deep into these layers say that it is because of the
repression of sex that smell is lost. Physically man is as sensitive as any other animal,
but psychologically his nose has been corrupted. Smell is one of the most sexual
doors into your body. It is through smell that animals start feeling whether a male is in
tune with the female or not. The smell is a subtle hint. When the female is ready to
make love to the male she releases a certain kind of smell. Only through that smell
does the male understand that he is acceptable. If that smell is not released by the
feminine sexual organism, the male moves away; he is not accepted.
Man has destroyed smell because it will be difficult to create a so-called cultured
society if your sense of smell remains natural. You are moving on the road and a
woman starts smelling and gives you a signal of acceptance. She is somebody else's
wife; her husband is with her. The signal is there that you are acceptable. What will
you do? It will be awkward, embarrassing.
Your wife is walking with you and there is no smell from her body, and suddenly a
man passes by and she gives the signal. And those are very unconscious signals; you
cannot control them suddenly. Then you will become aware that she is interested in
the other man, that she is welcoming the other man. That will create trouble. So down
the centuries man has destroyed smell completely.
It is not just accidental that in cultured countries much time is wasted in removing all
kinds of smell from the body. The body odour has to be completely destroyed by
deodorants, deodorant soaps. It has to be covered by layers of perfume, strong
perfume. These are all disguises; these are ways to avoid a reality that is still there.
When you make love, both male and female release a certain kind of smell. That
smell has to be destroyed because if the man is making love to the woman and the
woman is not really into it she will not release the smell. The man will be offended,
hurt. He will immediately feel that the woman is not having any orgasm. And the
male ego will feel very offended. The smell has to be destroyed completely, so that
the man never knows that the woman was simply pretending that she was having an
orgasm, just making empty gestures, befooling him, buttressing his ego. And he feels
satisfied because the woman looks satisfied. But once the smell is destroyed, there is
no way to detect whether she is really satisfied or not.
Smell is very sexual, that's why we have destroyed the nose, utterly destroyed the
nose. Even in language you can see the difference. To see means one thing; to hear,
one thing -- but to smell means just the opposite. To see means a capacity to see, but
to smell does not mean the capacity to smell. It means that you are smelly. Even in
language the repression has entered. And the same has happened with other senses.
You don't see people eye to eye; or, if you do see them, it is only for a few seconds.
You don't see people really; you go on avoiding. If you see, it is thought to be
offensive. Just remember, do you really see people? Or do you go on avoiding their
eyes? -- because if you don't avoid them then you may be able to see a few things
which the person is not willing to show. It is not good manners to see something that
he is not willing to show, so it is better to avoid. We listen t,, the words, we don't see
the face -- because many times the words and the face are contradictory. A man is
saying one thing and he is showing another. Gradually we have completely lost the
sense of seeing the face, the eyes, the gestures. We only listen to the words. Just watch
this and you will be surprised how people go on saying one thing and showing another.
And nobody detects it because you have been trained not to look directly into the face.
Or, even if you look, the look is not that of awareness, not that of attention. It is empty;
it is almost as if you are not looking.
We hear sounds by choice. We don't hear all kinds of sounds. We choose. Whatsoever
is useful we hear. And to different societies and different countries, different things
are valuable. A man who lives in a primitive world, in a forest, in a jungle, has a
different kind of receptivity for sounds. He has to be continuously alert and aware of
the animals. His life is in danger. You need not be alert. You live in a cultured world
where animals don't exist any more and there is no fear. Your survival is not at stake.
Your ears don't function perfectly because there is no need.
Have you seen a hare or a deer? How attentive they are, how sensitive. Just a small
sound -- a dead leaf stirred by the wind -- and the deer is alert. You would not have
noticed it at all. And great music surrounds life, subtle music surrounds life, but we
are absolutely unaware of it. There is great rhythm -- but to feel it you will need more
alert ears, more alert eyes, a more alert touch.
So the first layer is of corrupted physical senses. We see only what we want to see.
Our whole body mechanism is poisoned. Our body has been made rigid. We live in a
kind of frozenness; we are cold, closed, unavailable. We are so afraid of life that we
have killed all kinds of possibilities through which life can make a contact with us.
People don't touch each other, they don't hold hands, they don't hug each other. And
when you hold somebody's hand, you feel embarrassed, he feels embarrassed. Even if
you hug somebody, it feels as if something wrong is happening. And you are in a
hurry to get away from the other's body, because the other's body can open you. The
warmth of the other's body can open you. Even children are not allowed to hug their
parents. There is great fear.
And all fear is basically, deep down, rooted in the fear of sex. There is a taboo against
sex. A mother cannot hug her son because the son may get sexually aroused -- that is
the fear. A father cannot hug his daughter. He is afraid he may get physically aroused.
Warmth has its own ways of working. Nothing is wrong in being physically aroused
or sexually aroused. It is simply a sign that one is alive. that one is immensely alive.
But the fear, the sex taboo, says keep away, keep a distance.
Sudha's father was dying; he was very old. He was my sannyasin. And Sudha was
very much puzzled because before he died his hands would go again and again to his
genital organs. His hands had to be pulled away. And she was puzzled and worried,
naturally. What was happening to her father? Was there some sexual repression? Why
did his hands go to the sexual organs, to the genitals, again and again? And he was
almost unconscious.
It happens to many people when they are dying. One of the reasons is repression, but
only one. They are losing the social consciousness; they are losing the conditioning.
This first layer of corrupted senses is disappearing; death is moving in. And they are
becoming small children again. Small children play with their genital organs; they
have not yet been corrupted. They enjoy their bodies, they love their bodies. They are
playful about it, it is fun.
Now the man is no longer old; he is becoming younger again. Death is taking the
layer away -- that is one thing. Another thing is that when a man dies, for a single
moment all his senses become totally alive as they would have been if they had not
been corrupted. It is like a flame before a lamp goes out -- the flame burns brightly,
with intensity, for a single second. Exactly the same happens when life is going out.
For a single moment the last effort is made to live, and one burns bright with total
sensitivity.
Another reason: when a man is dying the circle is complete -- naturally death is very
close to birth. Death is very close to life; it is the very crescendo of life. Life comes
out of sex energy and life is moving back into sex energy.
But all our senses are corrupted. We have not been allowed to be natural -- -hence
man has lost dignity, innocence, grace, elegance. This is the first layer. And because of
all these repressions the body has become non-orgasmic. There is no joy -- it has
happened both to man and woman, in almost the same way, but man has gone deeper
into corruption than woman -- because man is perfectionistic, neurotically
perfectionistic. Once he gets an idea, he tries to go to the very extreme of it. Women
are more practical, less perfectionistic, less neurotic, more earthly, more balanced, less
intellectual, more intuitive. They have not gone to the very end. It is good that women
have not become as neurotic as men -- that's why they still retain some dignity, some
grace, some roundness of being, some poetry. But both have been corrupted by the
society, both have become hard. Men more, women a little less, but the difference is
only of degrees.
Because of this layer, everything that enters you has to pass this filter first, and this
filter destroys, interprets, manipulates, gives new colours of its own, projects, invents
-- and the reality becomes very garbed. When this layer disappears.... That is the
whole effort of yoga: to make your body alive, sensitive, young again, to give your
senses their maximum functioning. Then one functions with no taboos around; then
lucidity, grace, beauty flow. Warmth arises again, openness -- and growth happens.
One is constantly new, young, and one is always on an adventure. The body becomes
orgasmic. Joy surrounds you.
Through joy the first corruption disappears. Hence my insistence to be joyous, to be
celebrating, to enjoy life, to accept the body -- not only to accept it, but to feel grateful
that God has given you such a beautiful body, such a sensitive body, with so many
doors to relate to reality: eyes and ears and nose and touch. Open all these windows
and let life's breeze flow in, let life's sun shine in. Learn to be more sensitive. Use
every oppor-tunity to be sensitive so that that first filter is dropped.
If you are sitting on the grass, don't go on pulling it up and destroying it. I had to stop
sitting on the lawn -- I used to give darshan on the lawn -- because people would go
on destroying the grass, they would go on pulling on the grass. I had to stop it. People
are so violent, so unconsciously violent, they don't know what they are doing. And
they were told again and again, but within minutes they would forget. They were so
restless they didn't know what they were doing. The grass was available to their
restlessness so they would start pulling it up and destroying it.
When you are sitting on the grass, close your eyes, become the grass -- be grassy. Feel
that you are grass, feel the greenness of the grass, feel the wetness of the grass. Feel
the subtle smell that goes on being released by the grass. Feel the dewdrops on the
grass -- that they are on you. Feel the sunrays playing on the grass. For a moment be
lost into it and you will have a new sense of your body. And do it in all kinds of
situations: in a river, in a swimming pool, lying on the beach in the sunrays, looking at
the moon in the night, lying down with closed eyes on the sand and feeling the sand.
Millions of opportunities are there to make your body alive again. And only you can
do it. Society has done its work of corruption, you will have to undo it.
And once you start hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, then you smell the reality.
The second layer is of conditioning: social, political, religious, ideological -- belief
systems. Belief systems make you non-communicative. If you are a Hindu and I am a
Mohammedan, immediately there is no communication. If you are a man and I am a
man, there is communication, but if you are a communist and I am a fascist -communication stops. All belief systems are destructive to communication, and the
whole life is nothing but communicating -- communicating with trees, communicating
with rivers, communicating with sun and moon, communicating with people and
animals. It is communication; life is communication.
Dialogue disappears when you are burdened with belief systems. How can you really
be in a dialogue! You are already too full of your ideas and you think they are
absolutely true. When you are listening to the other, you are just being polite,
otherwise you don't listen. You know what is right, you are simply waiting until this
man finishes and then you jump upon him. Yes, there can be a debate and a discussion
and argumentation, but there can be no dialogue. Between two beliefs there is no
possibility of dialogue. Beliefs destroy friendship, beliefs destroy humanity, beliefs
destroy communion.
So if you want to see and hear and listen, then you will have to drop all belief systems.
You can't be a Hindu, you can't be a Mohammedan, you can't be a Christian. You can't
afford these kinds of nonsense; you have to be sensible enough to be without beliefs.
Caged in one's own system you are unavailable, and the other is unavailable to you.
People are moving like windowless houses. Yes, you come close, sometimes you
clash with each other -- but you never meet. Yes, sometimes you touch, but you never
meet. You talk, but you never communicate. Everybody is imprisoned in his own
conditionings; everybody is carrying his own prison around him. This has to be
dropped.
Beliefs create a kind of smugness, and beliefs stop exploration because one becomes
afraid. Maybe you come across something which is against your belief -- then what?
It will disturb your whole system, so it is better not to explore. Remain confined to a
dull, dead, defined world; never go beyond it. It gives you an 'as if' kind of knowledge
-- as if one knows. You don't know anything -- you don't know anything about God,
but you have a certain belief about God. You don't know anything about truth but you
have a theory about truth. This 'as if' is very dangerous. This is a kind of hypnotised
state of the mind.
Males and females, all have been conditioned -- although in different ways. Man has
been conditioned to be aggressive, to be competitive, to be manipulative, to be
egoistic. Man has been prepared for a different kind of work: to be the exploiter, to be
the oppressor, and to be the master. Women have been given belief systems to be the
slaves. They have been taught how to submit. They have been given a very, very
small world, the household. Their whole life has been taken away from them. But
once the belief system settles in, the woman accepts it and remains confined to it. And
the man accepts his belief system and remains confined to it.
Men have been taught not to cry; tears are not manly so men don't cry. Now what kind
of foolishness is this? Crying and weeping sometimes has such a therapeutic effect -it is needed, it is a must, it unburdens. Man goes on burdening himself because he
cannot cry and cannot weep; it is-unmanly. And women have been taught to cry and
weep. It is perfectly womanly, so they go on crying and weeping even where it is not
needed -- it is just a belief system. They use it as a strategy to manipulate. The woman
knows that through argument she will not be able to win over the husband, but she
can cry -- that works. So that becomes her argument.
Man is corrupted in one way: he cannot cry. And the woman is corrupted in another
way: she starts crying and uses crying as a strategy to dominate. Crying becomes
political -- and when your tears are political they lose beauty, they are ugly.
This second conditioning is one of the most difficult things to get rid of, it is very
complex. You have a certain political ideology, a certain religious ideology and
thousands of other things jumbled together in your mind. They have become so much
a part of you that you don't think they are separate from you. When you say 'I am a
Hindu,' you don't say that 'I have a belief called Hinduism,' no. You say 'I am a
Hindu.' You are identified with Hinduism. If Hinduism is in danger you think you are
in danger. If somebody burns a temple you think you are in danger. Or, if somebody
burns the Koran, you think you are in danger because you are a Mohammedan.
These belief systems have to be dropped. Then under-standing arises; then readiness
to explore, then innocence arises. Then you are surrounded by a sense of mystery, awe,
wonder. Then life is no longer a known thing, it is an adventure. It is so mysterious
that you can go on exploring; there is no end to it. And you never create any belief,
you remain in a state of not-knowing. On that state Sufis insist very much, and so do
Zen Masters -- in fact, all great Masters of the world insist on that state. If they agree
on any one thing, it is the state of not knowing.
Remain constantly in the state of not-knowing. If you happen to know something,
don't make a belief out of it. Go on dropping it, go on throwing it. Don't let it
surround you, otherwise sooner or later it will become a hard crust and you will not be
available again to life. Remain always childlike -- then communication becomes
possible, then dialogue becomes possible. When two people who are in a state of
not-knowing talk, there is meeting -- they commune. There is nothing to hinder. You
will be able to understand me only if you are in a state of not-knowing, because I am
in that state continuously.
With me, communion is possible if you drop your belief systems, otherwise they will
hinder the path.
The third filter, the third layer, is pseudo reasoning, rationalisation, explanations,
excuses. All are borrowed. Not a single one is your own authentic experience, but
they give a kind of satisfaction. You think you are a very rational being. You cannot
become rational by accumulating borrowed arguments and proofs. The real reason
arises only when you are intelligent. And remember, there is a difference between an
intellectual and the man whom I call intelligent. The intellectual is hidden behind the
pseudo reasoning. His reasoning may be very logical but it can never be reasonable.
His reason is just pseudo, it appears like reason.
Listen, I have heard....
The man was drowning. 'Help, I can't swim! I can't swim!' he cried.
'I can't either,' said the old man sitting on the river bank chewing tobacco. 'But I'm not
hollerin' about it!'
Now this is perfectly rational, 'Why are you hollerin' about it? You can't swim, neither
can I. So keep quiet.'
But you are sitting on the bank and he is in the river; the situation is different, the
context is different.
When Buddha says something, you can repeat the same thing but the context is
different. When Mohammed says something, you can repeat exactly the same thing.
but it will not mean the same thing -- because the context is different. And the context
matters, not what you say. It is not what you say but who you are that matters.
I have heard....
Donnegan sat in the confessional. 'Father,' he moaned, 'I have done something so bad,
you are going to throw me out of the church.'
'What did you do, my son?' asked the priest.
'Yesterday,' said Donnegan, 'I saw my wife sashaying in front of me and it got me so
excited I grabbed her, ripped off her clothes, threw her down on the floor, and we had
sex right then and there.'
'That is a little unusual,' said the priest, 'but no reason for excommunication.'
'Are you sure you're not going to throw me out of the church?'
'Of course not.'
'Well,' said Donnegan, 'they threw us out of the super-market!'
It all depends on the context -- who you are, where you are. It depends from what
point of view, from what experience, you utter. I use the same words that you use, but
they don't mean the same, they can't mean the same. When I utter them I utter them,
when you utter them you utter them. The words are the same but because they come
from different spaces they carry a different meaning, a different connotation, different
flavours, a different music.
The pseudo reasoning is just apparent reasoning, it is not knowing. It is more for the
sake of finding excuses; it is more for the sake of argumentation. In this kind of
deceiving, the male mind is very expert. This is the male mind's expertise. He has
learned the art very deeply. This filter is very, very strong in the male mind.
Real reasoning arises only when pseudo reasoning has been dropped. What is real
reason?
Karl Jaspers has defined it perfectly. He says: Reason is openness, reason is clarity,
reason is the will to unity. Reason uses logic, its methods and categories of
understanding, just to transcend them. Reason is the ultimate flowering of wisdom.
But not pseudo reasoning. Beware of the pseudo. The pseudo always creates a filter
and the real always becomes a door. The real is always a bridge and the pseudo is
always a block.
This third, pseudo reasoning layer is one of the greatest disturbances in your being.
The fourth layer is emotionality, sentimentalism. It is pseudo feeling, much ado about
nothing, much fuss. The female mind is very expert at this. It is kind of empty; it is
just on the surface. It is impotent sympathy; it does not do a thing. If somebody is ill,
you sit by their side and you cry. Your crying is not going to help. I he house 1S on
tire and you cry. That is not going to help either. This pseudo kind of feeling has to be
detected, otherwise you will never know what real feeling is. The real feeling is
involvement, commitment. It is empathy not only sympathy. It is action.
Whenever you really feel something in your heart, it immediately transforms you, it
becomes action. That is the criterion -- your feeling becomes action. If your feeling
just remains a feeling and never becomes an action, then know well it is pseudo. Then
you are deceiving yourself or somebody else.
Many times people come to me and they say, 'Osho, we feel much love for you. We
understand what you say, but.... ' That 'but' destroys all that they have said before.
They say, 'We feel that what you are saying is right, that what you are doing is right,
but we cannot become sannyasins.' If you feel that what I am saying is right, if you
feel that what I am saying is truth, then how can you avoid becoming sannyasins? It is
impossible. Then your feeling would become action, then your feeling would become
commitment -- otherwise what is the point?
One can never go against one's heart. If you are still going against your own heart
then you must have a pseudo heart -- a pretender. Just as the third is the field for male
expertise, the fourth is the field for female expertise.
The fifth layer is corrupted, poisoned instincts, repression, disfiguration.
Gurdjieff used to say that all your centres are overlapping each other, are misplaced,
are interfering with each other, are trespassing, and you don't know what is what.
Each centre in its own functioning is beautiful, but when it starts interfering into
somebody else's functioning, then there is great difficulty; then the whole system goes
neurotic.
For example, if your sex centre functions as a sex centre, it is perfectly good. But
people have been repressing it so much that in many people the sex centre does not
exist in their genitals, it has moved into their head. This is what overlapping is. Now
they make love through their head -- hence the great importance of pornography,
visualisation. Even while making love to your woman you may be thinking of some
beautiful actress -- that you are making love to her. Then suddenly you become
interested in making love to your woman. In fact, your own woman is non-existential.
It is a kind of masturbation. You are not making love to her, you are making love to
somebody else who is not there. You go on fantasising in the head.
Religious repression has disturbed all your centres. It is very difficult even to see that
your centres are separate. And, func-tioning in its own field, each centre is perfectly
right. When it interferes with another field, then problems arise. Then there is a
confusion of your totality. Then you don't know what is what.
Sex can be transformed when it is confined to its own centre, it cannot be transformed
from the head. It has created a pseudo centre in the head.
I have heard....
From time to time, saints are allowed to visit the earth in disguise. Saint Theresa had
long wanted to pay a visit to Hollywood, but Gabriel, who was in charge of the roster,
thought that even a saint would not be able to come through unscathed after visiting
the movie capital.
Eventually, however, Saint Theresa persuaded him that no harm would come to her,
and she set off on the first available earth-bound cloud.
The weeks stretched into months without any word from earth, so one day a very
worried Gabriel put through a telephone call to Los Angeles.
The connection was made, the phone rang, and finally a voice said, 'Terry here -- who
is this? Gabby-darling! How absolutely marvellous to hear from you.... '
Now Saint Theresa is no longer Saint Theresa -- she is Terry. And Gabriel is no longer
Gabriel -- he is Gabby-darling. Hollywood has corrupted Saint Theresa.
Your so-called saints are only avoiding the world; they are repressed beings. If
opportunities are made available to them, they will fall far lower than you. They are
just somehow holding themselves back because of the fear of hell and the greed for
heaven. But whatsoever you have repressed because of fear or greed remains there. It
not only remains there, it becomes unnatural, perverted, moves into deeper realms of
your consciousness and unconsciousness. And then it becomes very difficult to uproot
it.
Gurdjieff was a Sufi. His whole teaching comes from Sufi Masters. He introduced
methods into the Western world of how to demark each centre, and how to allow the
centre to function in its own field. The head should function as far as reason is
concerned, that's all.
Have you watched? Sometimes people come to me and they say, 'I think I love you.' I
think I love you! Love has nothing to do with thinking. How can you think that you
love me? But they don't know how to function from the heart directly, even the heart
has to go via the head. They cannot simply say, 'I love you.'
Just the other night a beautiful Italian woman took sannyas. I gave her the name 'Prem
Nishanga'. She was a woman of the heart, something rare. She was so happy she
almost started dancing. There was no need to say anything, her whole body said it.
She went into such ecstasy that you can go on saying in a thousand ways, shouting
with joy, and it will not be as deep as just by going into ecstasy. I don't know what she
was saying because she was saying it in Italian, but her face, her eyes, her hands, her
whole body was saying it. There was no need to understand her language; the
language was irrelevant. When you say from the heart, no language is needed. When
you say from the head, only language can say; there is no other way to say it.
Watch and observe. Let the head function as reason, let the heart function as feeling,
let the sex centre function as sex. Let everything function in its own way. Don't allow
mechanisms to mix into each other, otherwise you will have corrupted instincts.
When instinct is natural, untabooed, spontaneous, without any inhibition, there is a
clarity in your body, a harmony in your body. There is a humming sound in your
organism.
The fifth layer is also male expertise.
The sixth layer is corrupted intuition.
There is a phenomenon called intuition of which we have become almost unaware.
We don't know that anything like intuition exists -- because intuition is the sixth layer.
Those five layers are so thick that one never comes to feel the sixth.
Intuition is a totally different kind of phenomenon from reason. Reason argues; reason
uses a process to reach a conclusion. Intuition jumps -- it is a quantum leap. It knows
no process. It simply reaches to the conclusion without any process.
There have been many mathematicians who could do any kind of mathematical
problem without going into its process. Their functioning was intuitive. You just say
the problem and before you have even said it, the conclusion will come. There has not
been a time-gap at all. You were saying it, and the moment you finished, or even
before you finished, the conclusion has come. Mathematicians have always been
puzzled by these freak phenomena. These people -- how do they do it? If a
mathematician were going to do this problem it might take three hours or two hours or
one hour. Even a computer will take at least a few minutes to do it, but these people
don't take a single moment. You say it, and instantly....
So in mathematics, intuition is now a recognised fact. When reason fails, only
intuition can work. And all the great scientists have become aware of it: that all their
great discoveries are made not by reason but by intuition.
Madame Curie was working for three years upon a certain problem and was trying to
solve it from many directions. Every direction failed. One night, utterly exhausted,
she went to sleep, and she decided.... The incident is almost like Buddha. That night
she decided, 'Now it is enough. I have wasted three years. It seems to be a futile
search. I have to drop it.' That night she dropped it, and went to sleep.
In the night she got up in her sleep, she went to her table and wrote the answer. Then
she went back, and fell into sleep. In the morning she could not even remember, but
the answer was there on the table. And there was nobody in the room, and even if
there had been somebody, the answer would not have been possible. She had been
working for three years -- one of the greatest minds of this age. But there was nobody
and the answer was there. Then she looked more minutely: it was her handwriting!
Then suddenly the dream surfaced. She remembered it as if she had seen a dream in
the night in which she was sitting at the table and writing something. Then by and by
everything surfaced. She had come to the conclusion from some other door which was
not reason. It was intuition.
Buddha struggled for six years to attain samadhi, but could not. One day he dropped
the whole idea of attaining. He rested under a tree and by the morning it had happened.
When he opened his eyes he was in samadhi.
But first the reason had to be exhausted. Intuition functions only when reason is
exhausted. Intuition has no process; it simply jumps from the problem to the
conclusion. It is a shortcut. It is a flash.
We have corrupted intuition. Man's intuition is almost absolutely corrupted. Woman's
intuition is not corrupted as much -- that's why women have something called a
'hunch'. A hunch is just a fragment of intuition. It cannot be proved. You are going to
take a flight and your woman simply says that she is not going and she will not allow
you to go either. She feels as if something is going to happen. Now this is nonsense.
You have much work to do, everything is planned, and you have to go -- but your
woman won't allow it. And the next day you read in the newspapers that the aeroplane
was hijacked, or it crashed and all the passengers died.
Now the woman cannot say how she knows. There is no way. It is just a hunch, just a
feeling in the guts. But that too is very corrupted, that's why it is just a flash. When all
the five other layers have disappeared and you have dropped fixed ideas -- because
you have been taught that reason is the only door to reach to any conclusion -- when
you have dropped this fixation, this reason fixation, intuition starts flowering. Then it
is not just like a flash, it is a constantly available source. You can close your eyes and
you can go into it and always you can get the right direction from it.
That's what Fischer-Hoffman people think of as the guide. If the process really goes
in.... It is very difficult, because those five layers have to be crossed first. And I don't
think many people are capable of it, even those who are in Fisher-Hoffman therapy.
But the idea is perfectly right -- if those five layers are broken then something arises
in you which can be called the guide. You can always go into your intuition energy
and you will always find the right advice. In the East that is what they have called the
inner guru, your inner Master. Once your intuition has started functioning, you need
not go and ask any outer guru for any advice.
Intuition is to be in tune with oneself, totally in tune with oneself. And out of that
tuning, solutions arise from nowhere.
And the seventh and the last layer of falsity is the pseudo self, the ego; the notions of
being unique, special, exceptional; the notions of doing one's own thing... and you
don't know who you are, you don't know what your thing is.
Notions of the ego go on corrupting you. Then you cannot listen to the truth. And this
becomes a problem every day.
Just the other day I was talking about Hannah. Rather than understanding what I said,
rather than understanding, rather than feeling my compassion -- because why else
should I say it? -- she immediately went to the office and cancelled the darshan
appointment which she had. She became very angry. Now I was talking about her ego,
but rather than seeing it, she acted out of it again. She missed the point again.
And the other day I was also talking about Prageet. He was better than Hannah. He
asked for an appointment, he took it more rightly. Of course he was very much shaken;
it was hard to digest, hard to swallow. But he tried his best to see the point of it. He
made every effort that he could.
Or, for example, I go on hammering on Chinmaya, again and again. I never hammer
anybody else as much as I hammer Chinmaya, but he takes it absolutely rightly, in the
exact way as it should be taken. And each hammering has become a growth in him;
each hammering has helped him -- he is moving.
Hannah got stopped there. She may lose contact with me.
This is the last layer: a very subtle pseudo sense of self.
When these seven are broken, you come to the state of BAKA, real individuality, And
when you have real individuality then there is a possibility of having a real non being.
From real individuality, BAKA, YOU can have the jump into FANA. Then you can
offer yourself to God. This is the whole process.
Now this beautiful dialogue between a Master and his disciple. Now you will be able
to understand.
THE SUFI MASTER, AJNABI, SAID, 'WRITE TO MULLA FIROZ AND TELL
HIM THAT I HAVE NO TIME TO ENGAGE HIM IN CORRESPONDENCE, AND
THEREFORE HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO HIS LETTER.'
Mulla Firoz must have been a very learned man of those days. 'Mulla' means a pundit,
a scholar, a learned man. He must have been offended and annoyed by Ajnabi's
assertions. Masters are there to shock. And when there is a man of knowing, the
greatest shock is to those who think they know and don't know. The knowledgeable
man immediately feels offended, because the man of knowing has his own source of
knowing. He talks from there. And the man of knowledge looks into the scripture. He
has no source to check upon, he has no authentic experience of his own. He lives in
pseudo reason, pseudo ego, argumentation, verbal knowledge, belief systems and all
that.
THE SUFI MASTER, AJNABI, SAID, 'WRITE TO MULLA FIROZ AND TELL
HIM THAT I HAVE NO TIME TO ENGAGE HIM IN CORRESPONDENCE, AND
THEREFORE HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO HIS LETTER.'
THE DISCIPLE, AMINI, SAID, 'IS IT YOUR INTENTION TO ANNOY HIM
WITH THIS LETTER?'
That is the intention always of all the Masters: to annoy you, because only if you are
annoyed can you be changed. If you are annoyed then there is a possibility, then you
start moving.
AJNABI SAID, 'HE HAS BEEN ANNOYED BY SOME OF MY WRITINGS. THIS
ANNOYANCE HAS CAUSED HIM TO WRITE TO ME. MY PURPOSE IN
WRITING THE PASSAGE WHICH ANGERS HIM WAS TO ANGER SUCH AS
HE.'
That was his purpose and it was fulfilled. He wanted to anger people such as Mulla -the knowledgeable people.
AMINI SAID, 'AND THIS LETTER WILL ANGER HIM FURTHER?'
AJNABI SAID, 'YES. WHEN HE WAS ENRAGED AT WHAT I WROTE, HE DID
NOT OBSERVE HIS OWN ANGER, WHICH WAS MY INTENTION. HE
THOUGHT THAT HE WAS OBSERVING ME, WHEREAS HE WAS ONLY
FEELING ANGRY. NOW I WRITE AGAIN, TO AROUSE ANGER, SO THAT HE
WILL SEE THAT HE IS ANGRY. THE OBJECTIVE IS FOR THE MAN TO
REALISE THAT MY WORK IS A MIRROR IN WHICH HE SEES HIMSELF.'
This you have to keep in your mind constantly, because this Is happening here every
day. If I say something, never be bothered about me. don't think why I have said this,
rather, on the contrary, just look inside yourself at what it has done to you. I said
something about Hannah. Now there are two possibilities. She can think, 'This man is
wrong, he is offending me, he is insulting me, humiliating me, degrading me' -something like that. Then she has missed the point. But if she starts watching and
observing, 'Why am I angered? Why is there this annoyance in me? Why am I
disturbed?' then she is on the right track. Then she will come closer to me than she
ever was before.
Always remember this. What I say, how I say it, why I say it -- there is no way for you
to decide. There is no way for you even to understand. All that you can do in your
situation right now is see what happens to you. If I slap your face, don't be worried
why I slapped you -- whether I am an angry man or an aggressive man or violent -don't be worried about that. Just close your eyes, and go into meditation and see why
you are feeling offended. Why? Watch your mind. That is going to help.
That's why I don't want mediocre people here who have just come out of curiosity to
listen to me. This is not a school; nothing is being taught here. This is just an
alchemical-lab; something is happening here. It is a process of transformation. If you
remember this you will be benefitted immensely.
'YES, WHEN HE WAS ENRAGED AT WHAT I WROTE, HE DID NOT OBSERVE
HIS OWN ANGER, WHICH WAS MY INTENTION. HE THOUGHT THAT HE
WAS OBSERVING ME, WHEREAS HE WAS ONLY FEELING ANGRY. NOW I
WRITE AGAIN, TO AROUSE HIS ANGER...'
The Master is saying, 'Out of compassion I will give him another opportunity.'
... SO THAT HE WILL SEE THAT HE IS ANGRY. THE OBJECTIVE IS FOR THE
MAN TO REALISE THAT MY WORK IS A MIRROR IN WHICH HE SEES
HIMSELF.'
That's what a Master is: a mirror in which you see yourself. If sometimes you see that
your face is ugly, don't try to destroy the mirror -- change your face. By destroying the
mirror you will not become beautiful; by escaping from the mirror you will not
become beautiful.
Yesterday, the whole day, continuously, Prageet thought about escaping: 'How to
escape from here?' But again and again he remembered that he had not to escape, he
had to face it. Again and again he remembered and cooled down, and again and again
the idea was there pulling him to escape from here. That is natural, it is
understandable. But if you can remember for even a few single moments and you can
remain with me and can go on facing the mirror, sooner or later you will have to
change.
There are only two possibilities: either escape from the mirror -- then you will never
see your face and you can believe that you are beautiful -- or go on facing the mirror,
go on seeing your ugliness. And all kinds of methods and processes are being made
available to you so that you can change your face.
Just a few days before there was a man who took sannyas. He said he was a beautician.
I told him, 'I am also a beautician. I do the same work. I change people's faces -- not
the faces that you can see from the outside but the faces, the original faces, that are
hidden deep behind all kinds of facades, all kinds of layers.'
AMINI SAID, 'THE PEOPLE OF THE ORDINARY WORLD ALWAYS REGARD
THOSE WHO CAUSE ANGER AS ILL-INTENTIONED.'
That's what Hannah thought. That's what for a few moments even Prageet thought.
That's what Chinmaya used to think in the beginning. But now he has crossed that
point. I have been hammering him so much -- how long can you go on thinking? One
day or other one has to become aware that something is wrong somewhere inside
oneself, and that it has to be dropped.
AJNABI SAID, 'THE CHILD MAY REGARD THE ADULT WHO TRIES TO
REMOVE A THORN FROM HIS HAND AS ILL-INTENTIONED. IS THAT A
JUSTIFICATION FOR TRYING TO PREVENT THE CHILD FROM GROWING
UP?'
AMINI SAID, 'AND IF THE CHILD HARBOURS A GRUDGE AGAINST THE
ADULT WHO REMOVES THE THORN?'
AJNABI SAID, 'THE CHILD DOES NOT REALLY HARBOUR THAT GRUDGE,
BECAUSE SOMETHING IN HIM KNOWS THE TRUTH.'
This is of immense value, this statement. Yes, something in you always knows the
truth. Something in Hannah knows the truth. It is impossible not to know the truth.
Maybe it is not very clear, it is hazy -- but something in you always knows the truth...
that it is because of compassion, because of love, that you have been hammered upon.
Otherwise there is no need.
AMINI ASKED HIM, 'BUT WHAT HAPPENS IF HE NEVER GETS TO KNOW
HIMSELF, AND YET CONTINUES TO IMAGINE THAT OTHERS ARE
MOTIVATED BY PERSONAL FEELINGS?'
AJNABI SAID, 'IF HE NEVER GETS TO KNOW HIMSELF, IT MAKES NO
DIFFERENCE AS TO WHAT HE THINKS OF OTHER PEOPLE, BECAUSE HE
CAN NEVER HAVE ANY APPRECIATION OF WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE
REALLY LIKE.'
AMINI ASKED, 'IS IT NOT POSSIBLE, INSTEAD OF AROUSING ANGER A
SECOND TIME, TO EXPLAIN THAT THE ORIGINAL WRITING WAS
COMPOSED FOR THIS PURPOSE, AND TO INVITE MULLA TO REVIEW HIS
PREVIOUS FEELINGS?'
A very reasonable standpoint of the disciple, but remember that sometimes reasonable
things are not very useful. They don't work. You will agree with the disciple, with
what he is saying. This seems to be very, very reasonable -- 'What is the point of
angering him, annoying him twice? Will it not be better to explain to him why in the
first place you said things to annoy him? Would it not be better to explain?'
AJNABI SAID, 'IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO THIS, BUT IT WILL HAVE NO EFFECT.'
A Master is not interested in being polite, in following the rules of etiquette, manners,
etcetera. A master is interested only in creating an effect, in creating an action, in
creating a response. Yes, he could explain to the Mulla what had hap-pened. That may
satisfy him, that may cool him down. His anger may disappear, he may no longer feel
annoyed -- but that is not the point. That is not going to create the effect that the
Master wants. The Master wants the Mulla to see that he is only a man of knowledge,
not yet a man of knowing; that he was not wise. Explanation will make the Mulla
more knowledgeable. He will have one more explanation. That is not going to shatter
his ego.
'IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO THIS, BUT IT WILL HAVE NO EFFECT. RATHER IT
WILL HAVE AN ADVERSE EFFECT. IF YOU TELL THE MAN YOUR REASON
HE WILL IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE EXCUSING YOURSELF, AND THIS WILL
AROUSE IN HIM SENTIMENTS WHICH ARE HARMFUL ONLY TO HIM.
THUS, BY EXPLAINING YOU ARE ACTUALLY ACTING TO HIS DETRIMENT.'
AMINI SAID, 'ARE THERE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE -- THAT MAN
MUST LEARN THROUGH REALISING HIS OWN STATE, AND THAT HIS
STATE CANNOT BE EXPLAINED TO HIM?'
AJNABI SAID, 'THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. BUT IF THERE WERE ENOUGH
EXCEPTIONS TO MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO THE WORLD, WE WOULD
NOT BY NOW HAVE ANY MULLA FIROZES LEFT.'
There are not many. There are some exceptions but there are not many -- that's why
they are exceptions. They are few and far between. They can be counted out; they
need not be reckoned.
A Master has to function in such a way that the rule is fulfilled, not the exception -because ninety-nine point nine per cent of people follow the rule. Sometimes there is
a rare person but that rare person need not have any help from anybody; he will come
to his realisation sooner or later. It may be only a question of time. That exceptional
intelligence need not be worried about. The Master has to function in such a way that
the common mind, the normal mind, the usual mind, the non-exceptional mind, starts
moving and changing.
This small discussion between the Master and the disciple is of immense significance
for you. That's why I have chosen it. Remember those seven layers of the onion.
Unless you drop them you cannot see things as they are, you cannot see that which is.
And from your very childhood you have been corrupted. Your whole life up to now
has been a life of poisoning, and only you can drop it. I can show you the way but I
cannot take it away from you. If I start taking it away you will snatch it and escape,
you will think that you are being robbed. I can only show you the way. You have to
follow it.
Meditate over this small dialogue. It is especially for you.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #6
Chapter title: An Eternal Recurrence
1 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709010
ShortTitle:
SUFIS206
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 94 mins
The first question:
Question 1
RECENTLY, MIND ALMOST STOPPING, I HAVE SUDDENLY FELT MYSELF
AND EVERYTHING AROUND ME TO BE EXISTING EXACTLY AS IN JESUS'
TIME. AND THERE HAS BEEN A VERY STRONG SENSE OF JESUS HIMSELF.
COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS KIND OF PHENOMENON?
The question is from Somendra.
It is the same drama enacted again and again; the script remains the same, only the
actors change. Friedrich Nietzsche has a very beautiful theory about it: the theory of
eternal recurrence. It may not be true in the details, but the idea is significant and
profound.
It is like seasons -- summer comes, followed by the rains, and then comes winter and
again summer. In summer there will be summer flowers; in the rains there will be rain
flowers; in winter there will be winter flowers. No single flower will ever be repeated,
but the essential idea will be repeated again and again. It is an eternal recurrence.
The story is the same. In its basics it is never different. It may be Krishna or Christ,
Mahavira or Mohammed... actors change, different players participate, but the
essential core of it is eternally the same. So when you move deeply in meditation -- as
Somendra is doing every day -- and when the mind is almost stopping -- as he says in
his question -- you become aware of many things which were already there, but of
which you were not aware.
Jesus is very deep in the Western consciousness. He is an archetype. Whenever you
see something closely resembling it, your unconscious will release the archetype to
your conscious. Because Somendra has lived as a Christian for many lives, Christ has
gone very deep into his consciousness. He cannot remember Krishna, he has no
relationship with Krishna. That symbol, that metaphor, does not exist in his
unconscious mind. If he had been a Hindu for many lives, then he would have felt as
if it was the time of Krishna. Or if he had been a Buddhist for many lives, then he
would have felt the presence of Buddha. But it is the same. Buddha's body is different
from Jesus' body, but what is hidden behind the body is not different -- that inner
purity, that inner innocence, that primal innoCenCe is the same.
In Somendra's unconscious, Jesus is very deep. And Jesus will be felt by many of you
for another reason also. Although Somendra was not there in Jesus' time, there are
many people here who were. The greater number of my sannyasins are Jews. It is not
accidental, it can't be accidental. Jews don't exist in India -- not at all. So many Jews
reaching me -- there must be something profound in it. They have missed Jesus and an
unconscious search continues. And in a very unconscious way they are smelling
something here. This time they don't want to miss. More and more Jews will be
coming. That time they missed; it was difficult to accept Jesus in those days.
In these two thousand years much has happened. Jesus is more relevant now, more in
tune with human consciousness now. Because Jesus was a Jew it was very difficult for
Jews to accept him -- as it is difficult for Hindus to accept me. Mind plays strange
games. It somebody is born into your religion it becomes very difficult for your ego to
accept him as enlightened. Or if somebody is born in the same village as you, it
becomes even more difficult. Or if you have been studying with somebody in the
same school and suddenly the rumour arises that he has become enlightened or has
been chosen by God as his prophet. you will reject the idea outright. You know the
man from his childhood, you know him in and out -- how can he become the chosen
one of God? While you are there, how can God choose him? How can God dare? If he
was going to choose. he would have chosen you. It becomes very difficult for the ego.
India is going to miss me for the simple reason that I have been born here. This
accident is going to be a calamity for India. You don't see many Indians here. You
may not have looked at it in this way. Why are they not here? It is very difficult for
their egos to accept me, particularly Jainas -- the small religious group of Jainas in
India. It was an accident that I was born a Jaina. You will not find them here.
Sometimes you will find a few Hindus here, but the number of Jainas will be smaller.
And even smaller will be the number of that particular sect -- in the Jaina sect there is
this smaller sect -- to which I belonged in this accidental birth.
The number of Jainas is very small -- thirty lakhs in India -- and among Jainas there
are many sects. One sect, a very small sect, is SAMHIYA -- the word comes from
samadhi -- those who only believe in samadhi. It is the same word that has become
SANMI in Japanese, and later on satori. You will rarely find a SAMAHIYA here,
impossible. There are only a few thousand. They all know me, they are
well-acquainted with me, but that is the problem -- because of that they cannot come
here.
India is going to miss. Apart from India, nobody is going to miss; everybody else will
be more in tune with me.
Jews have come in great numbers. They have the feeling that something is happening
here. The same drama is being enacted again in the twentieth century -- something of
Christ's consciousness. And they can accept me more easily than they could ever have
accepted Jesus. He was a Jew, a carpenter's son -- it was almost impossible to accept
him.
More of you by and by will start feeling a kind of DEJA VU, as if this is no longer the
twentieth century, as if these twenty centuries have suddenly disappeared from your
consciousness, as if you are again in the days of Jesus in Jerusalem walking with him,
or by Galilee moving with him, or in Bethlehem. To many of you that dream will
unfold, because to understand me, that will be the closest metaphor for the Western
consciousness.
No Hindu will ever feel that something of Christ is happening here. It he ever comes
to feel anything, he will feel Krishna. No Buddhist will feel something about Christ. If
he ever feels anything, he will feel something about Buddha. These are archetypes,
metaphors in the unconscious, and when you come closer to your depth you start
releasing the poetry of your soul.
So Somendra is right. He says: RECENTLY, MIND ALMOST STOPPING, I HAVE
SUDDENLY FELT MYSELF AND EVERYTHING AROUND ME TO BE
EXISTING EXACTLY IN JESUS' TIME. AND THERE HAS BEEN A VERY
STRONG SENSE OF JESUS HIMSELF. COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT
THIS PHENOMENON?
It is tremendously significant. Go deeper into it. Don't give any resistance to it. This
will also disappear. Just as the conscious disappears, one day the unconscious also
disappears. But to live in unconscious metaphors is better than to live in the conscious,
because they are deeper. And he is perfectly right in saying 'mind almost stopping',
because if it stops absolutely then even Jesus will disappear. These are all mind things
ultimately; all words, all metaphors, are mind things. Just a little of the mind is left -be ready, Somendra, to drop that too. But there is no hurry, and don't be impatient, and
don't fight with it. It is going on its own, it is on its deathbed.
The second question:
Question 2
AFTER TODAY'S DISCOURSE I MET SATYA ON THE STAIRS. SHE WAS
LAUGHING. I WANTED TO SOB, BUT FELT I MUST LIGHTEN UP AND
LAUGH, THAT SHE WAS POSITIVE AND I WAS NEGATIVE. I LAUGHED A
LIE. COULD I BE TRUE TO MYSELF AND MEET HER IN THAT MOMENT?
The question is from Vandana.
This is something to be understood by everybody.
Satya is in a laughing space. Something is stirring in her. She is not the laughing type,
she is the crying type. When she came here, whenever she would come to me she
would start crying. Tears were easier for her. Now suddenly tears have disappeared
and laughter has arisen -- and such a mad laughter that she goes on laughing for hours.
It has almost become painful to her. The whole night she goes on laughing.
Naturally one becomes afraid. What is happening? For no reason at all? She has not
been the laughing type, so her whole life she has repressed her laughter. Her type was
the crying one, the sad. Now suddenly the type is changing, swinging from one
polarity to another polarity. Before it stops in the middle and a balance arises, it has to
go to the other polarity.
Her whole life she repressed laughter, unknowingly. Now the repression has
disappeared, the lid has been taken off. Now she cannot cry, the tears are there no
more. The whole life's laughter is coming up with a vengeance! It is almost hysterical.
But it is a beautiful space because it is an indication of a great change, a
transformation, an alchemical change. Tears are becoming laughter. Soon laughter
will also disappear. As tears have disappeared, laughter will disappear. Then she will
come to the exact middle; then there will be great balance, an equilibrium. That
equilibrium is the goal.
Neither the negative nor the positive is the goal, because both are half. Yes, if you
have to choose between the negative and the positive, choose the positive. That is a
lesser kind of evil, that's all. But if you have a choice between tranquillity and the
positive, then choose tranquillity. Then the positive is nothing, then the positive is
almost negative in comparison to tranquillity. If there is only one choice -- tears or
laughter -- then laughter is good. But if there is a choice of being silent, then tears and
laughter both have to be dropped. One becomes silent.
She will soon come to that silence. After this storm of laughter, there will be a great
silence. It always comes after the storm. This is a release, a release of repressed
laughter. It has to be taken off her consciousness. It is being taken off, and she is
pouring like anything.
Now Vandana says: AFTER TODAY'S DISCOURSE I MET SATYA ON THE
STAIRS. SHE WAS LAUGHING. I WANTED TO SOB, BUT FELT I MUST
LIGHTEN UP AND LAUGH, THAT SHE WAS POSITIVE AND I WAS NEGATIVE.
I LAUGHED A LIE. COULD I BE TRUE TO MYSELF AND MEET HER IN THAT
MOMENT?
Yes, there is no other way to meet anybody. Meeting is possible only if you are true,
because only two true persons meet. Satya is laughing, and logically Vandana thought,
'If I also laugh there will be a kind of dialogue. We will be both in the same space. '
But how can you be both in the same space? Her laughter is true, your laughter is a lie.
These are not the same thing. A true laughter and a laughter that is not true are poles
apart. How can you meet? Truth and falsity can never meet. If Vandana had sobbed, as
she was feeling, there would have been a meeting. But that looks illogical -somebody is laughing and you start crying? That looks illogical. It looks like you are
going in a different direction. Then how will there be a meeting? But let me tell you,
you are not going in a different direction. It you are being true and she is being true,
you are going in the same direction. It does not matter what kind of truth is happening
to you.
If Vandana had cried great tears, if she had wept as she was feeling, if she had been
true to her feeling, there would have been a meeting; then the laughter and the crying
are not opposite because both are true. Only two truths can meet; only two truths can
have a dialogue.
But she missed the point, as many of you would have missed. The logical mind says,
'She is laughing, and if I cry then we will fall apart. Then how will there ever be a
communion between us?' And then the mind said, 'She is positive and you are
negative.' That doesn't matter. You can meet a positive person through your negativity.
The only thing needed is the same earth of truth, the same ground of truth.
Positive and negative can meet. In fact, they meet beautifully. In fact, it happens
sometimes that positive and positive cannot meet and negatiVe and negative cannot
meet, because they don't have the pull of the opposite. There is a kind of
homosexuality when positive and positive are there and when negative and negative
are there. Meeting is more easy and more enriching when it is heterosexual. Laughter
and crying can meet very beautifully. That is the meeting of man and woman, day and
night, life and death.
You can ask the scientist, the physicist... he will say, 'Only opposite poles meet. The
positive repels the positive; the negative repels the negative. Only negative and
positive meet.' If you bring two positive magnets close they will repel each other; if
you bring one negative and one positive together they will join together in a marriage.
So the only thing needed is truth. Don't be worried about the positive and the negative.
Don't listen to the logical mind, because the logical mind is absurd. Life is bigger than
logic.
Just see... Vandana feeling like crying and crying and Satya laughing -- both are true.
Then there is a common ground, then they are moving in the same direction, then they
can hold hands. Satya may go on laughing and Vandana may go on crying, but there
will be a kind of marriage in that moment, there will be great communion in that
moment -- both are being true. Remember, it is only truth that connects. It is only
truth that bridges.
Don't be worried about the negative and the positive. The only thing that has to be
remembered always is authenticity. All falsehood creates barriers.
The third question:
Question 3
WHY ARE PEOPLE SO FAKE?
People are so fake because it pays, it is a good policy. If you are true, you will be in
danger. You can be true only in a true society where truth is respected, loved. This
society exists through lies. Here truth is not respected, here truth is crucified, here
truth is killed. Lies are enthroned. That's why politics becomes so important in this
world -- because politics is the game of lies. And the politicians become the most
important people in the world. They should be the last. They become the first because
this world -- this whole society -- is based on lies. And if you live with liars and you
will live with this falsehood all around you, you have to be fake. It pays, it is
economical, it is safe. It protects you -- otherwise people will be against you. If you
are true and they are all living through lies, they cannot tolerate you.
From the very beginning a child starts learning that lies pay. If the child tells the truth,
he is beaten; if the child tells the truth, it creates a kind of embarrassment for the
parents. If the child is being truthful, nobody is for him, everybody is against him. If
he is Lying, then he can protect himself. A lie becomes a kind of umbrella. And if he
is Lying in tune with the parents' lies, then there is no problem at all. He can exist
very smoothly. And children are very perceptive, sensitive; they learn whatsoever they
see around.
I have heard....
Returning after a lengthy absence to his family's spot on the beach, the youngster
found them preparing to leave.
'Come along,' said the mother, 'we are going to a restaurant for a good dinner.'
'I am not hungry,' said the boy. 'I have eaten seven ice cream cones and three
frankfurters.'
'Where on earth did you get seven ice cream cones and three frankfurters?' asked his
astounded mother. 'You didn't have any money.'
'I didn't need money. I just wandered all around the beach crying as if I was lost.'
'Crying as if I was lost.... ' Now the child has learned a great trick. If the child
pretends that he is lost, it pays. And that is the whole secret of why people are fake -it pays. Whenever you are true, it harms you. And who is there to harm himself, and
for what? The lie is a survival measure.
I have heard....
An art collector chanced upon a painting bearing the signature 'Picasso'. He purchased
it immediately, hoping that it would prove to be very valuable. But a nagging doubt
about the possibility of its being a forgery compelled him to seek out Picasso's home.
After much waiting he finally gained a moment of Picasso's time, and showed him the
painting.
'It is a fake!' snapped the great painter, and slammed the door shut.
The collector was crestfallen and determined not to be taken in again. However, some
time later, he came across a different painting, also bearing the signature 'Picasso'. He
carefully researched the history of this painting and purchased it only after fully
documenting its authenticity. However, even with legal proof that this was a genuine
Picasso, he still felt a twinge of doubt, and resolved to satisfy his doubts by again
visiting him.
When he finally gained a moment of Picasso's time, the great painter took one look at
the painting, and said, 'It is a fake!'
'But, Picasso,' pleaded the art collector, 'I researched this painting thoroughly. I can
prove that you yourself painted it.'
To this Picasso replied, 'I often paint fakes.'
It happens. Even a painter starts learning what sells. Not all Picasso's paintings are
originals. More of them are fake, although they have been painted by him. Then what
does he mean by saying that it is a fake? He is simply saying that he is just copying it
from his other paintings; it is not original, it is a copy. It does not matter who is
copying -- somebody else or Picasso himself.
It almost always happens that when a person gets a Nobel Prize he never produces
anything original afterwards. He goes on repeating his old story in new ways. Because
it has paid so much, he is stuck. He thinks it sells so he goes on writing the same thing
again and again. It has never happened, up to now, that after getting a Nobel Prize, a
poet or a novelist has been able to do anything original again. The Nobel Prize is a
kind of death knell, the person is finished -- because now he knows what pays, now he
has found the secret of success, now he has the key, so why bother trying other keys?
They may not be so successful. Why bother about other directions and dimensions of
creativity? One knows the right way to do a thing, so one goes on doing the right
thing again and again and again, and becomes fake.
People are false because they have found a key. They know what makes life secure,
comfortable, convenient, safe -- although convenience, comfort, safety, security, don't
bring any kind of blessing. They bring all kinds of miseries, they don't bring any
happiness in life. Happiness comes only through being original. Unless you have your
original face you will never be blessed.
But to have your original face you will have to pass through many inconveniences,
discomforts. The path is arduous. Keep it in mind that whenever you face a choice
between convenience and joy, always choose joy, otherwise you will become fake.
Whenever you have a choice between comfort and some adventure, choose the
adventure, howsoever arduous, otherwise you will become a fake. Whenever you
have a choice between security and insecurity, let insecurity be your love. Never
choose security. Security makes people dead and dull. A perfectly secure person is
already in his grave, he is no longer alive. If you are alive there is bound to be
insecurity -- the more alive, the more insecure.
A really totally alive person lives moment to moment in insecurity. But then there is
great thrill. And he is always on the verge of the unknown and he is always moving
into something mysterious. The mysterious cannot be secure. Don't depend on bank
balances, don't depend on marriage, don't depend on a comfortable and well-paying
job, don't depend on family, society and state. People who have depended on those
things are all around. You can see them -- how dead they are, how dragging is their
life, how sad are their eyes. Not a single song is in their heart and you will never feel
any dance in their feet. Impossible. You can go on searching in their life and you will
find desert and more desert, not a single oasis. Love does not bloom; celebration they
have not known.
I have heard....
An Indian died -- a very religious man, ritualistic, formal. He had been doing all the
kinds of things that the scriptures commanded. So he was very, very certain of
reaching paradise. When he reached there he looked through the door and he was
surprised. The paradise looked almost like India, no difference, none at all.
So he asked the angel standing at the gate, 'What is the matter? It looks almost like
India, I don't see any difference. Paradise is almost like our land, our country.'
And the man standing on the door said, 'What are you talking about? And why do you
go on bowing down to me? This is not paradise and I am not an angel!'
This story is beautiful.... It is hell and the man standing on the door is not an angel but
the Devil! But hell will look like India. Hell will look like anything that you have
become accustomed to. If you are a German then hell will look like Germany, if you
are Japanese then hell will look like Japan, if you are English then hell will look
exactly like England.
Hell is that which you know. Meditate over it: hell is that which you are acquainted
with; hell is the past, the known, the well-trodden path. Heaven is something
unknown, something that you cannot compare with your past, cannot compare with
your experience, there is no comparison. It is utterly new! Utterly! Absolutely! It is
discontinuous. You have never known anything like it.
But if you live a life of comfort and convenience and ritual and formality and lies, if
you live a fake life, a pseudo life, you live in hell. And you will be living in hell in the
future too. You are creating it around yourself. Shake yourself up and get out of your
dull and dead so-called life. Start living again. And don't think about what pays! It is
always the wrong thing that pays in this world. The right thing never pays because
there are no more people who can pay for the right thing. If you do something wrong
you will be paid very much.
Just think, a poet is not paid, but a general is. And the general is doing the wrong
thing -- killing people. He is a murderer. The soldier is paid, not a painter. Those who
bring death into the world, they are paid. Can't you see it? The army people are the
well-paid people. They are the butchers and murderers, but they are the most
well-paid, well-fed. They live in good houses, have all the facilities of life. Look at
the poet who goes on singing songs of love -- he will be a beggar. Think of the
musician who brings music to your door -- he is a beggar. All that is right is not paid;
it cannot be paid. The world is so wrong. The politicians are highly paid, highly
respected. The newspapers are continuously full of their news. Have you ever seen
anything else than politics in the newspapers? And these are the most mischievous
people in the world. These are the people who make the earth a hell. But they are the
well-paid people.
Remember, if you think in terms of payment, you will be fake. If you want to be paid
in this world with comfort, luxury, you will have to be fake. If you really want to be
alive, then don't bother whether it pays or not. If it pays, good; if it doesn't pay, good.
But then you will be living a life of great enrichment. You may not be rich, but your
life will be enriched. You may not have fame, but you will have joy; you may not be
known in the world, but you will be known to God. And that is all that is worth
anything.
And I am not saying that you all have to carry your crosses on your shoulders
continuously. No, I am not saying that. I never demand the impossible. When you live
with false people there is no need to create unnecessary conflict either. Avoid. Go on
searching for your life, your original face, but there is no need to be in conflict every
day, every moment -- otherwise it becomes a problem, an unnecessary wastage of
energy. Follow the rules of ordinary life, just as one follows the rules of a game. On
the roads in India they say: Keep to the left -- so keep to the left. It is nothing of any
importance. In America they keep to the right. That too is perfectly okay. When in
America keep to the right, when in India keep to the left. And if some mad country
exists somewhere where you have to keep in the centre, keep in the centre. Don't be
worried.
But always know that this is nothing fundamental. It has nothing to do with any truth.
It is a convenience. And when there are so many people.... You need not create
incon-venience for others. You are at freedom to create all kinds of inconveniences for
yourself -- that is your freedom -- but you need not create inconveniences for others.
I have heard....
The great maestro, Toscanini, was as well-known for his ferocious temper as for his
outstanding musicianship. When members of his orchestra played badly, he would
pick up anything in sight and hurl it to the floor. During one rehearsal a flat note
caused the genius to grab his valuable watch and smash it beyond repair.
Shortly afterwards, he received from his devoted musicians a luxurious, velvet lined
box containing two watches -- one a beautiful gold timepiece, the other a cheap one
on which was inscribed: For rehearsals only.
So keep that in mind. When you are moving in the world, moving with people, there
is no need to carry your cross. There is no need to go on shouting loudly that you are a
martyr or a Jesus or a Mansoor, there is no need. Follow the rules of the game. It is
just a game.
But remember always that the game should not become your whole life. That's all I
would like my sannyasins to remember. That's why I don't take you out of society.
Never has it been done before. For a single reason it has never been done before -- the
reason was that Buddha would not allow his sannyasins to live in the world. The
problem was that if the sannyasin was to be true, it would be difficult to live in the
world -- because with people you have to be polite, formal, many times. In life you
cannot continuously remember that you have to be true; people are so false. Just out
of compassion, out of politeness, sometimes you may have to keep yourself quiet, not
to say a word -- because if you say something it is going to hurt people unnecessarily.
Or sometimes you will have to do something which is not true. You can't be
absolutely yourself when you are living with so many people. So Buddha said to his
sannyasins, 'Leave the world. Sacrifice your relationships to be true.' Others who
decided to live in the world sacrificed their truth to live in relationship.
Both are lopsided. You can leave the world, but then you will be leaving many
opportunities to grow. You can go to a Himalayan cave and sit there. Of course there
will be no need to lie because there will be nobody to lie to, nobody to talk to, nobody
to relate to. You will be alone in the cave, you will be perfectly true, you can have
your original face -- but then you don't have any opportunities as challenges to
provoke you into growth. You are out of life, and only in life do people grow.
Life is a great opportunity. In the cave you will be secluded, all alone, dull and dead.
You will again become dead because you will not have any possibility of responding.
Yes, you will not be telling any untruth, but to whom are you going to say the truth?
You will not be angry, right, but you will not be loving either. So this is something
meaningless. Anger is dropped but love also disappears. So the old kind of sannyasin
becomes cold. They don't have any anger -- a good thing -- but they don't have any
love. And that can't be praised.
It is as if a person was afraid of illness so he committed suicide. Now he will never be
ill, that's true, but he will never be alive either. This is throwing the baby out with the
bath water. I am not in support of it.
But up to now these have been the two alternatives given to humanity. One is to leave
the world, to shrink into yourself -- that is a kind of dull life again. Or, to live in the
world and be false, because it is too troublesome to be true.
I am giving you the golden mean: live in the world and don't be of the world. You will
need to be very, very alert -- more alert than Buddha's sannyasins. They did not need
to be alert, they could go to sleep in their caves. You will have to be very, very alert,
and you will have to keep two watches -- one for rehearsals only, and one, the real one,
for yourself. You will have to become a great actor. But when you act consciously you
are not fake. When a conscious act is there and you know that it is just an act, then it
is not going to destroy your life. But when you forget that this is an act and you
become identified with it, then you become worldly.
So the old definition of the worldly is to live in the world, and the definition of the
non-worldly is to not live in the world to get out of it. My definition is different. The
worldly is one who gets into his act and becomes unconscious and forgets that this is
an act. It is as if you are playing on the stage, acting some role. For example, you are
in a drama playing the role of Jesus or Pontius Pilate and you forget that it is a role,
and when the curtains fall and you come home you come as Pontius Pilate or Jesus
Christ. Then you will be in trouble.
It has happened sometimes. Once it happened to an actor who was playing Abraham
Lincoln continuously for one year around the United States. Every day the party
travelled from one town to another town, and he was Abraham Lincoln. One year is a
long time. He got mixed up. After one year he forgot his real identity, who he was,
and he started saying that he was Abraham Lincoln. At first people thought he was
joking, but then it became serious. He came home but he came as Abraham Lincoln.
His wife tried to persuade him to get out of his role, his father tried to convince him
that he was not Abraham Lincoln, but he wouldn't listen. And he wouldn't wear
ordinary clothes either, he would wear the clothes that he had been wearing on the
stage. And he would walk like Abraham, he would stutter like Abraham, and his face
had also become like Abraham's. For one year he was pretending and pretending and
pretending. It became so difficult that they had to bring him to a psychiatrist. The
psychiatrist tried hard, from one direction and another, but he wouldn't say anything
else except 'What are you saying? Have you gone mad? I am Abraham Lincoln!'
There was no way....
They have a lie-detector mechanism in America which they use in the courts. The
person concerned stands on the mechanism unaware that there is a mechanism
underneath. It is like a cardiogram-type thing. It makes a graph of your heartbeats.
When you are speaking the truth there are smooth lines, when you are suddenly ready
to speak an untruth there is a gap -- because the heart knows something else. And the
graph is broken. So when you lie it can be seen in the graph. The graph becomes
shaken or broken.
For example, if somebody asks you, 'What is the time on your watch?' you look and
you say, 'Nine o'clock.' There is no need to lie. The graph is running smoothly. And if
somebody asks, 'How many people are here?' you count and you say, 'Ten.' There is
no need to lie. The graph is going smoothly. Then the person asks, 'Are you the
murderer of this man?' Your heart says, 'Yes!' because it knows, and you say 'No.' So
there is a conflict between the heart and you, and that conflict shakes the graph. Then
it can be shown where you lied.
So the psychiatrist suggested that this Abraham Lincoln be put on the lie detector.
There only would they be able to see whether he was lying or not. Now the man who
was Abraham Lincoln had got fed up with all kinds of treatments and psychiatry and
medicine and tranquillisers, and all kinds of suggestions and everybody pretending to
be wise and patronising him. So he decided that day that although he was Abraham
Lincoln it was better to say he was not. 'Be finished with it! Inside I know that I am,
but for the outside I will just tell them and be finished with it. Otherwise life will
become a problem!'
Standing on the lie detector, they asked him different questions and he answered.
Then they came to the real question -- they asked, 'Are you Abraham Lincoln?'
He said, 'No!' And the detector said he was Lying.
He had got so much in tune with the idea, that in his deepest core he knew that he was
Abraham Lincoln. Now just on the surface he was lying.
If this happens, then you are a worldly man. That is my definition of a worldly man -one who gets into his act and forgets to come out; one who remains hooked there.
This is the worldly man. And the sannyasin, the other-worldly, is the man who goes
on playing acts, who knows they are acts, who never gets hooked by any act. When he
comes home, he plays the act of being the husband and the father and the wife. These
are all games. Play beautiful, play artistically, play aesthetically, but there is no need
to get hooked -- that YOU ARE a father, that you ARE a mother, that you ARE this or
that. Or you are a doctor, you are an engineer, you are this and that -- these are
functions. When you are treating a patient, be in the role of being a doctor, but when
there is no patient and you are sitting alone in your room, there is no need to be a
doctor. Otherwise you are doing the same stupid thing as that man who became
Abraham Lincoln.
I used to stay at a friend's house in Calcutta. He was a Justice of the High Court in
those days, now he is a Chief Justice somewhere. His wife told me, 'My husband
respects you so much, he loves you so much, that you are the only person who can be
of some help to me.' I said, 'What is the matter?' She said, 'He is always the Justice -even at home, even with children. He never comes out of that role. Not only that, even
in bed with me, while he is making love, he is the Justice. And I have to treat him as
"Your Majesty", "Your Honour". He expects that. And I feel as if I am a criminal
standing before him always to be judged. And the whole house becomes sad when he
comes in. When he goes out there is joy that the Justice has gone.'
This is happening to almost everybody, more or less. I call the man worldly who does
not know how to play a game and gets too serious about it.
My sannyasin is a new entry into the world of religion. He will live in the world, he
will play all kinds of games, and he will know that these are all games and he will
never be hooked by any game. And he will always be able to get out of any act easily,
and he will go on searching for his original face. He will not be lost in the acts that he
has to put up with.
This is of immense importance. If he lives in the world in a worldly way, he becomes
dead. If he becomes an old traditional kind of sannyasin, he shrinks and becomes dead.
Both are ways of death. Life is where opposites meet. Life is where day and night
meet. Life is in the world and yet only for those who can remain beyond it. Be a lotus
flower -- in the water and yet untouched by it.
The fourth question:
Question 4
I AM MUCH CONFUSED ABOUT THE FOLLOWING QUESTION. I AM
TRAINED AS A PHYSICIAN AND I HAVE ALWAYS FELT DEEPLY THAT IT IS
A GOOD THING. BUT INTRINSIC IN MY WORK, IN MY ACTIVITY, IS A
REFUSAL TO ACCEPT ILLNESS AND DEATH, DISEASE AND HUMAN
SUFFERING. VERY DEEP, THEREFORE, IS A REFUSAL TO ACCEPT LIFE OR
EXISTENCE AS IT IS. VERY DEEP IS A DESIRE TO CORRECT SOME OF
THESE MECHANISMS OF NATURE. ALL MY PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY IS
GOADED BY A FEAR, A DEEP PERSONAL FEAR, OF SICKNESS, SUFFERING
AND DEATH. I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO VIEW MY WORK IN THE LIGHT OF
THE WHOLE. PLEASE SHOW THE LIGHT OF EXISTENCE ON THIS AREA OF
CONFUSION FOR ME.
This is a significant question, but the question arises because of a wrong attitude in
Western medicine.
In the East we have a totally different outlook. The polar opposite to Western
medicine is the Taoist attitude about medicine. You will have to understand a few
things.
First, the questioner says: I AM MUCH CONFUSED ABOUT THE FOLLOWING
QUESTION. I AM TRAINED AS A PHYSICIAN, AND I HAVE ALWAYS FELT
DEEPLY THAT IT IS A GOOD THING. BUT INTRINSIC IN MY WORK, IN MY
ACTIVITY, IS A REFUSAL TO ACCEPT ILLNESS AND DEATH, DISEASE AND
HUMAN SUFFERING.
Now, a distinction has to be made. Illness, disease and suffering are one thing; death
is totally different. In the Western mind, illness, disease, suffering and death are all
together -- packed in one package. From there problems arise.
Death is beautiful; illness is not, suffering is not, disease is not. Death IS beautiful.
Death is not a sword that cuts your life, it is like a flower -- an ultimate flower -- that
blooms at the last moment. It is the peak. Death is the flower on the tree of life. It is
not the end of life but the crescendo. It is the ultimate orgasm. There is nothing wrong
in death; it is beautiful -- but one needs Lo know how to live and how to die.
There is an art of living and there is an art of dying, and the second art is of more
value than the first art. But the second can be known only when you have known the
first. Only those who know how to live rightly know how to die rightly. And then
death is a door into the divine.
So, the first thing: please keep death apart. Only think of illness, disease and suffering.
You need not fight against death. That is creating trouble in the Western mind, in the
Western hospitals, in Western medicine. People are fighting against death. People are
almost vegetating in the hospitals, just alive on drugs. They are forced to live
unnecessarily when they would have died naturally. Through medical support their
death is being postponed. They are of no use, life is of no use for them; the game is
over, they are finished. Now to keep them alive is just to make them suffer more.
Sometimes they may be in a coma, and a person can be in a coma for months and
years. But because there is an antagonism against death it has become a great problem
in the Western mind: what to do when a person is in a coma and will never recover,
but can be kept alive for years? He will be a corpse, just a breathing corpse, that's all.
He will simply vegetate; there will be no life.
What is the point? Why not allow him to die? There is the fear of death. Death is the
enemy -- how to surrender to the enemy, to death?
So there is great controversy in the Western medical mind. What to do? Should a
person be allowed to die? Should a person be allowed to decide whether he wants to
die? Should the family be allowed to decide whether they would like him to die? -because sometimes the person may be unconscious and cannot decide.
But is it right to help somebody to die? Great fear arises in the Western mind. To die?
That means you are murdering the person! The whole of science exists to keep him
alive.
Now this is stupid! Life in itself has no value unless there is joy, unless there is dance,
unless there is some creativity, unless there is love -- life in itself is meaningless. Just
to live is meaningless. A point comes when one has lived, a point comes when it is
natural to die, when it is beautiful to die. Just as when you have been doing work the
whole day, a point comes when you fall asleep. Death is a kind of sleep -- a deeper
sleep. You will be born again in a newer body with a newer mechanism, with new
facilities, with new opportunities, new challenges. This body is old and one has to
leave it; it is just a dwelling.
But there are people who-are even afraid of sleep. Just a few days ago I was reading a
book in which the author says, 'There is no need to sleep. It is a wastage of time.' A
person lives almost one-third of his life in sleep -- and that is not living at all, because
he creates nothing, he does not work. What is the point of keeping a man asleep?
Sooner or later they will start finding drugs so that a man can avoid sleep completely.
Just think of the world where sleep will become impossible, they won't allow you
even to sleep.
In Russia they have invented instruments to teach children while they are asleep. Now
will you not leave even sleep alone. It is called hypno-teaching. A tape recorder is
connected and the whole night the tape recorder goes on teaching mathematics,
history, geography. The child has been tortured the whole day in the school, now you
cannot even allow him rest. The Western mind is too utilitarian. It does not believe in
rest, it believes in work. Its whole ethos is that of work, not of relaxation. And in the
morning the child has to go to school again. You will create more neurotic people in
the world if you don't even allow sleep.
And this author suggests that there is a possibility that through some drugs sleep can
be completely removed and a man can live awake for seventy years. Just think of the
nightmare! These people who are against sleep are against death too. They are against
any kind of relaxation, let-go. Just go on fighting.
In the East we have a different outlook: death is not the enemy but the friend. Death
gives you rest. You have become tired, you have lived your life, you have known all
the joys that can be known in life, you have burnt your candle totally. Now go into
darkness, rest for a while and then you can be born again. Death will revive you again
in a fresher way.
So the first thing: death is not the enemy.
The second thing: death is the greatest experience in life if you can die consciously.
And you can die consciously only if you are not against it. If you are against it you
become very panicky, very afraid. When you are so afraid that you cannot tolerate that
fear there is a natural mechanism in the body which releases drugs into the body and
you become unconscious. There is a point beyond which endurance will not be
possible; you become unconscious So millions of people die unconsciously and miss
a great moment, the greatest of all. It is samadhi, it is satori, it is meditation
happening to you. It is a natural gift.
If you can be alert and you can see that you are not the body.... You will have to see,
because the body will disappear. Soon you will be able to see that you are not the
body, you are separate. Then you will see you are separating from the mind too. Then
the mind will disappear. And then you will be just a flame of awareness, and that is
the greatest benediction there is.
So the first thing: don't think of death as illness, disease and human suffering.
The second thing: illness, disease and suffering are bad because they happen only
when you are not natural. Something has gone wrong. Health is natural, death is
natural, but disease is not natural. Disease is simply an indication that something is
going wrong in your nature. For example, you have eaten too much and there is pain
in your stomach. This pain is not natural, you have done something unnatural. You
have not slept for two, three days, because you were running after money and it was
not possible for you to sleep. Or you were fighting an election and it was not possible
to sleep, or to afford that much time for sleep. You were on an election campaign, so
you have not slept for three days and now the head is becoming neurotic, bursting;
there is great pain in the head. This is just a symptom. Nature is saying to you. 'Come
back to me. You have gone too far away.'
Man is free and he can be unnatural. Many kinds of diseases happen only when we go
somewhere astray from nature. If man lives naturally there will be no disease.
But man cannot live naturally continuously because man also has freedom.
Sometimes you can eat a little too much -- that is your freedom. And sometimes you
can go on a fast -- that too is your freedom. Man is the only animal in the world who
has freedom: that is his dignity. But freedom brings dangers. The first danger is that
you can go against nature. And nature is so polite that it does not shout, it whispers.
Nature is very silent; its voice is very still and small. It goes on saying, 'Don't do it,
don't do it, don't do it,' and it goes on tolerating. There is a point beyond which it
cannot tolerate and the disease erupts.
Now, what is the physician meant to do? In the East the physician does not fight
disease, the physician is not meant to destroy the disease. The physician is simply
meant to bring the man back to nature.
The questioner asks: BUT INTRINSIC IN MY WORK, IN MY ACTIVITY, IS A
REFUSAL TO ACCEPT ILLNESS, DISEASE AND HUMAN SUFFERING. VERY
DEEP THEREFORE, IS A REFUSAL TO ACCEPT LIFE OR EXISTENCE AS IT IS.
VERY DEEP IS A DESIRE TO CORRECT SOME OF THESE MECHANISMS OF
NATURE.
Yes, the desire is perfectly right. But it is not to correct some mechanisms of nature, it
is to correct some mechanism which has gone against nature.
The physician is not correcting nature, he is only correcting man. This is a totally
different vision. The physician is not correcting nature. Nature is always correct.
Sometimes man can be wrong, because he has freedom. The physician corrects man.
You will be surprised to know that in China there has been a traditional concept -- a
very ancient tradition -- that when a person falls ill he stops paying his physician.
Otherwise he has to pay, if the person remains healthy he has to pay; if he falls ill then
he stops paying. That means that the physician has not been looking at nature and has
not been helping nature and has not been helping him to keep 'right', in tune with
nature. The physician has failed.
This is a very strange outlook. When you are ill you go to the doctor and you pay. In
China, for centuries they have been paying when they are healthy. They go to their
doctor and pay because they are healthy -- the doctor keeps them healthy. When they
are ill, they stop paying. Why should they pay? The doctor has not been doing his job.
His job is to keep people natural. This will be the vision of the future. Sooner or later,
this vision has to come.
The doctor is not against nature, the doctor is only putting people right because people
have the freedom to go wrong. They can.
So there is no need to keep yourself miserable -- that you are doing something good,
but then there is a refusal to accept disease and illness. Yes, there is a refusal to accept
disease and illness, but disease and illness are not natural, they are a going astray. Put
man right. You are not fighting against the whole, you are fighting for the whole
against man. Let it be looked at in this way.
The questioner says that he is afraid -- it is as if he is fighting against the whole. If the
whole wants disease then let it be there. If this is the will of the whole then let it be
there, he should surrender.
You are not fighting the whole when you are fighting the disease, you are fighting a
part which is going against the whole. If the part is in tune with the whole, in harmony,
there will be no disease, no illness.
But man has freedom. And with freedom many dangers enter.
If you go into the forest, into the jungle, you will be surprised to see that animals are
almost never ill. I am not talking about the animals who live in a zoo -- they are ill.
They have become human imitators. To live with humans is very dangerous. But in a
jungle, living in a wild situation, animals live and die -- they are never ill. They never
eat too much because they don't have that much freedom. They never fast, they don't
have that much freedom, they don't have that much consciousness. They don't do
anything that is unnatural. They go on doing the natural thing, and they keep healthy.
Once I went into a reserve forest with a few of my friends. One lady was with me who
was really fat, exceptionally fat. She was just sitting by my side in the jeep when we
went into the forest. That forest has thousands of deer, and a row of deer was passing
and we were watching. I told the lady, 'Just watch for one thing. See if you find any
deer that is fat.' Thousands of deer passed and the lady became very, very embarrassed
because she could not find a single deer that was fat. They were all alike, there was
not a single fat deer -- because deer can't eat too much. And when deer don't eat too
much they never have to diet, there is no need. A physician is not needed.
Illnesses like tuberculosis or cancer don't happen in nature. Cancer-happens only in a
very higher kind of civilisation.
In India the ancient name for tuberculosis is 'the royal disease'. It used to happen only
to kings. It is called RAJ YASHIMA -- only to the kings. It never happened to poor
people. It couldn't happen. A poor person can't suffer that much for tuberculosis to
happen. Then by and by poor people became rich, then the tuberculosis became more
and more available to everybody.
Cancer is a new phenomenon. It is absolutely new. It is not mentioned in any ancient
medicine manual -- Taoist or Hindu -- it is absolutely new. It had to wait for the
twentieth century to happen. A great tension is needed for it to happen. So much
unnatural tension is needed for it to happen that it was not possible before. Only we
can afford cancer; we have become affluent enough to have it. And our minds are
becoming neurotic with desires -- we are running in all directions, we are falling
apart.
You need not be worried that you are fighting against nature or against the whole. You
are not fighting against nature, you are fighting against the stupidity of the part which
has gone against the whole. You are bringing the person back to the whole.
And remember always, a physician never heals, he cannot heal. He can only make the
healing force of the whole available to the patient. It is the whole that heals. It is not
the physician and it is not the medicine either that heals. The medicine and the
physician and the hospital all bring the part back closer to the whole, where healing
happens. the physician and the medicine were just instrumental.
You need not be worried. You are in the service of nature. You can be happy that you
are doing something beautiful.
The last question:
There are two questions connected. First:
Question 5
A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, I HAD ALL THE SYMPTOMS OF A HEART
ATTACK AND WAS TAKEN TO HOSPITAL FOR FIVE DAYS, BUT THERE WAS
NO HEART ATTACK. AND LATELY I HEAR THAT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE
HAD THE SAME FEELING. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
The question is from Sheela.
And the second question is from Satya:
Question 6
SO MANY PEOPLE AT THE ASHRAM SEEM TO BE HAVING SOMETHING
HAPPENING TO THEIR HEART RECENTLY: PAIN IN THE HEART, BURNING
IN THE HEART, FEELING LIKE THEIR HEART IS ABOUT TO BREAK WITH
LOVE, WITH GRATITUDE. I HAVE A TICKLE IN MY HEART. SHEELA SAYS
THAT WHEN YOUR LONG ARM HIT HER IN THE LECTURE THE OTHER
DAY, SHE FELT IT IN HER HEART. WHAT IS HAPPENING?
First: the physical heart is not your real heart. The real heart exists just behind the
physical heart. The real heart is not part of your physical mechanism at all. The real
heart exists in the soul -- it is the centre of the soul.
The physical heart is the centre of the body and the spiritual heart is the centre of the
soul. They both exist together, side by side. Just behind the physical is the spiritual
heart. And it is going to happen to many people, this misunderstanding.
When the spiritual heart starts opening, you will have ripples in your physical heart
too. They correspond, they are very close together. When something vibrates in the
spiritual heart, you will feel echoes in the physical heart too. In fact, you will first feel
it only in the physical heart because you don't know anything about the spiritual heart.
Your first awareness of it will be of the physical heart getting some strange feelings.
Sometimes it can be that of burning, sometimes it can be that of throbbing, sometimes
it can be that of bursting, sometimes it can be almost like a heart attack.
It has been happening down the ages to all meditators. Whenever people go deep into
meditation this is bound to happen. The spiritual heart starts trembling, opening, the
petals bloom, and the physical heart starts catching the vibrations, the echoes. But this
is a beautiful sign. Don't be afraid of it. Soon you will become aware of the spiritual
heart, then all symptoms from the physical will disappear.
The first symptoms will be of uneasiness, restlessness. It is so because something new
is happening and you are not accustomed to it. When you become a little more
accustomed to it, more harmonious with it, you will see that it is not restlessness, it
was just a new taste that you had not known before. It disturbs you. When it becomes
well-acquainted, well-known, it will give you a new kind of peace, silence. And great
love will arise out of it.
Just a few days before one old sannyasin came to me, and he said, 'A strange thing has
happened' -- and he is very old, seventy or seventy-five -- 'I had the feeling of a heart
attack, so I went to the doctor and they examined me and they said there was nothing
wrong. I was absolutely healthy and normal. So what is happening to me?'
I told him jokingly that it was not a heart attack, it was a love attack.
Yes, when your spiritual centres start opening you will have love attacks. Your body
will feel the trembling, the restlessness. Soon it will settle, and when it settles you will
have a new being -- a new plane of being. You have moved from the physical to the
spiritual.
Between the physical heart and the spiritual heart is the mind. That is the only barrier.
The whole effort of meditation is to disperse the mind. Once the mind is dispersed,
the physical heart and the spiritual heart both start dancing together. Then a great
beauty arises. And it is not only spiritual, it will be seen in your physical face too. A
grace, a new quality of energy will be around you. And not only will you feel it,
others will feel it too. You will have a new vibe.
This is going to happen to many people because many people are meditating and they
are really working hard. But I am not saying that if sometimes you start feeling
something going wrong in the heart you are not to go to the physician. You have to go!
Sometimes it may be a heart attack. You have to go. If it is not a heart attack the
physician will tell you that it is not. But you have to check it.
This question is important because it is relevant to many of you. To many it has
happened, and to many it is going to happen, and to many more. But always, when
you have something happening in the body, go to the physician and be checked. If it is
nothing, there is no problem. If there is something, you can take medicine.
So don't think that it is always the spiritual heart because sometimes it may not be.
Sometimes it may be the physical heart and if you don't go to the physician you can
be in danger.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #7
Chapter title: Full Emptiness
2 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709020
ShortTitle:
SUFIS207
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 98 mins
THIS INTERCHANGE BETWEEN THE SUFI MYSTIC, SIMAB, AND A
NOBLEMAN NAMED MULAKAB, IS PRESERVED IN ORAL TRANSMISSION
AS A DIALOGUE OFTEN STAGED BY WANDERING DERVISHES.
MULAKAB: 'TELL ME SOMETHING OF YOUR PHILOSOPHY SO THAT I MAY
UNDERSTAND.'
THE MYSTIC REPLIED: 'YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND UNLESS YOU HAVE
EXPERIENCE.'
MULAKAB: 'I DO NOT HAVE TO UNDERSTAND A CAKE TO KNOW
WHETHER IT IS BAD.'
SIMAB: 'IF YOU ARE LOOKING AT GOOD FISH AND YOU THINK THAT IT IS
A BAD CAKE, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND LESS, AND TO UNDERSTAND
IT BETTER, MORE THAN YOU NEED ANYTHING ELSE.'
MULAKAB: 'THEN WHY DO YOU NOT ABANDON BOOKS AND LECTURES
IF THE EXPERIENCE IS THE NECESSITY?'
SIMAB: 'BECAUSE THE OUTWARD IS THE CONDUCTOR TO THE INWARD.
BOOKS WILL TEACH YOU SOMETHING OF THE OUTWARD ASPECTS OF
THE INWARD, AND SO WILL LECTURES. WITHOUT THEM YOU WILL
MAKE NO PROGRESS.'
MULAKAB: 'BUT WHY SHOULD WE NOT BE ABLE TO DO SO WITHOUT
BOOKS?'
SIMAB: 'FOR THE SAME REASON THAT YOU CANNOT THINK WITHOUT
WORDS. YOU HAVE BEEN REARED ON BOOKS; YOUR MIND IS SO
ALTERED BY BOOKS AND LECTURES, BY HEARING AND SPEAKING, THAT
THE INWARD CAN ONLY SPEAK TO YOU THROUGH THE OUTWARD.
WHATEVER YOU PRETEND YOU CAN PERCEIVE.'
MULAKAB: 'DOES THIS APPLY TO EVERYONE?'
SIMAB: 'IT APPLIES TO WHOM IT APPLIES. IT APPLIES ABOVE ALL TO
THOSE WHO THINK IT DOES NOT APPLY TO THEM!'
SUFISM is an alchemy. It is the science to trans-form lead into gold, the lower into
the higher, the outer into the inner. It is the science to transform the world into God.
Remember, Sufism is not a philosophy, it is a science. It does not believe in
speculation, it believes in experience. It does not believe in logical thinking, it
believes in experimentation. Only experiment decides what is true; nothing else can
be decisive. Only when you know do you know -- there is no other way to know.
Sufism does not trust in beliefs. It wants you to drop all kinds of beliefs because they
will be the barriers to knowing. A belief is a pseudo kind of knowing -- you really
don't know but because you believe, because you have believed so long, you start
feeling as if you know. All your beliefs have to be taken away from you. You have to
be left in ignoranCe and innocence. Only from there is experimentation possible.
Science presupposes nothing -- no belief, no a priori belief. There is no presupposition
at all. Science starts with a blank mind.
These are the three things you will have to understand deeply. The first is art. Art does
not bother much about the object. it has its own projections. Art uses the object as a
screen on which to project its subjectivity. When you see a woman's face or a child's
face or a flower, art is not concerned with the objective -- with what is there -- art is
concerned with what you make of it, what you project onto it. Beauty is not part of the
objective, beauty is your dream that you bring to the object -- then the object looks
beautiful.
Art invents, art does not discover. It is not interested in discovery, it is inventive, it is
imaginative, it is projective. That is the basic meaning of the word 'poet'. The original
root comes from POETES -- POETES means one who creates. Art is creative.
But what can you create? Whatsoever you create will be your mind projection. Art
creates beauty. Science is not creative in that sense. Science is discovery. Whatsoever
is there, science only uncovers it. It does not invent, it has no idea to project. Science
is objective; art is subjective. With art you have some projections, some ideas as a
requirement. Before you come to the rose-flower you have to come with some dreams
in your mind, you have to nourish dreams. When those dreams are overflowing they
will overflow onto the roseflower, they will surround the roseflower with a glory, with
an aura, and you will see something which is not there. You will see something which
is really inside you and is only reflected from the outside back to you. Art is a dream;
it is dream stuff.
Science is objective. The basic requirement of science is to go nude, naked; to go
without any prejudice; to go without any idea of what the case is; just to be there,
impartial, objective, with no thoughts in the mind -- so that you can watch
what-soever is there. Reality reveals itself if you can be a witness. A pure witnessing
is what science is.
And then there is philosophy. Art at least projects onto something outside. Science
does not project at all; it allows the outside to reveal its truth. And philosophy? It is
pure subjectivity. It does not even bother about the screen. Art at least bothers about
the screen -- the screen has to be there, then it can project. Philosophy is pure
speculation. You close your eyes and you go into your thoughts and you can go on
and on forever. It is an endless procession of thoughts.
Philosophy is pure subjectivity, science is pure objectivity, art is just in the middle of
the two -- a little of philosophy and a little of science, a little of objectivity and a little
of subjectivity. Art is a mixture.
Religion can be of three types. It can either be philosophic or it can be artistic or it can
be scientific. Sufism is the third kind of religion. It believes in experiment, in
experience; it does not believe in beliefs. It trusts only the truth that is already there.
You have only to uncover it.
To start with, Sufism says that you have to prepare yourself so that no prejudices, no
conditionings, come in between you and the truth. The journey starts with you
dropping beliefs, theories, philosophies, systems. Only when you are empty of all
thought are your eyes ready, receptive. Then you can see.
The state in which human beings ordinarily exist is called NAFS by Sufis. The word
means: desire-nature -- what Hindus call VASANA and what Buddhists call TANHA
-- the desire to have more, the desire to possess, the desire to be powerful, the desire
to be this or that. You are full of these desires, NAFS, and because of these desires
you cannot see what truth is. Your desires go on overcrowding your consciousness
and if the consciousness is too overcrowded by desires there is no possibility of seeing
the truth.
When you are full of lust, you start seeing things according to your lust. When you are
full of desire you start projecting, you start seeing things which are not there.
According to your desire you start colouring things.
One day just go into the marketplace. Well-fed, satisfied with your food, go, have a
stroll on the street. And then another day fast and go again on the same street. you will
be surprised -- it is not the same street. When you are well-fed you see certain things;
on the same street, when you are hungry, you see totally different things. When you
are on a fast, hungry, you will see restaurants, hotels, things like that. You will go on
missing the shoe-store and other things. When you are well-fed you will not see the
restaurants and the hotels at all. You may not have any idea that they exist there.
You constantly choose according to your desire. When you are full of sexuality you
will see women, if you are a man; or if you are a woman, you will see men. When
sexuality disappears you stop seeing man and woman, you stop dividing that way. It
simply does not matter. It is pointless.
The first thing that you see in the other is whether he is man or woman. Have you
watched it. You never forget it. You can forget everything -- you can forget the name
of the person, the face of the person -- but you neVer forget whether the person is man
or woman. Why? Have you ever forgotten that about anybody? Have you ever
wondered whether he is man or woman? 'I knew him twenty years ago. I don't
remember his name, I don't remember his face, I don't remember anything about
him.... ' but have you ever wondered whether he was man or woman? No that you
remember. That goes deep in you -- because of nafs. The first thing you look into is
whether the person is man or woman.
Just a few days ago it happened that a Japanese man took sannyas and Mukta told me
that he was a she -- some mistake from the office on her chart. So I gave him sannyas
and gave him a 'Ma' name, but he was a man. And you know the Japanese, they are so
polite they will not say no. I have heard that the Japanese have no equivalent word to
no, they always say yes -- hal. They are just being polite.
So he accepted even that. He didn't say, 'I am a man. I am not a woman.' Only later on
was it known that he was a man and I had given him a 'Ma' name.
What happened? When you don't have nafs you don't look into another's sexuality.
That doesn't matter. That does not matter at all. You are not concerned with the form
of his body -- whether he has breasts or not, whether he has a beard or not. You don't
see it that way. Once nafs has disappeared, once the desire-nature has disappeared, the
other is a person, a pure person. Maleness, femaleness are irrelevant facts. Who
bothers? Otherwise those are the most pertinent and relevant facts. The first thing that
you see in the other is a reflection of your nafs.
Sufis say nafs is the state where man exists, and through nafs there is no possibility of
seeing God -- because nafs can only see sexuality, money, power. Nafs is blind to God.
Unless you drop nafs you will not see God -- and God is everywhere. Only GOd is.
All is God. Nothing else is. But you will not see God, you cannot see God. To see
God you will have to drop nafs.
Why does nafs become such a barrier? What exactly is nafs? Nafs is a neurotic hunger
which cannot be satisfied. That's why it is neurotic -- because there is no way to fulfil
it. The more you fulfil it, the more it grows. Nafs is a constant hankering to have more
-- of whatsoever. If you have money you want to have more money, if you have a
beautiful woman you want to have a more beautiful woman, if you have power you
want to have more power -- always more and more and more. Now this more cannot
be satisfied. In the very nature of things the desire for more cannot be satisfied -because whatsoever you have, your desire for more remains.
You have ten thousand rupees -- your desire for more says, 'Have one thousand more.
Eleven thousand will be okay.' When you have eleven thousand the desire-nature says,
'Have twelve thousand.' And so on, so forth. You can have millions, it will not make a
bit of difference. Ten thousand rupees or ten million rupees, it will not make a bit of
difference, not even an iota -- because the desiring-nature always goes on asking for
more. You have ten million rupees, the desiring-nature says, 'Have eleven million
rupees.' It is the same mind. When you had ten thousand it was saying, 'Have eleven
thousand,' now you have ten million it says, 'Have eleven million.' The proportion
remains the same.
The desire nature, nafs, is like the horizon -- it always looks as if it is just there,
maybe ten miles away. If you rush you can reach it within tWo hours. But you will
never reach it. After two hours, when you look, you will find that it has again receded
back, and the distance is the same.
This goes on -- that's why all the religions have called this desire-nature the source of
all kinds of mirages, illusions. It creates an illusion, an illusory line, there -- the
horizon. The horizon does not exist because the earth and the heaven never meet
anywhere. And the earth is round. It just appears that somewhere the earth and sky are
meeting -- just yonder, there. And it seems so close that it seems worthwhile to try. It
remains always so close and always so distant. Between you and the horizon the
distance is constant. It is the same distance.
The desire for more cannot be satisfied. And because the desire for more cannot be
satisfied, you cannot see that which is. You always hanker for that which is not, so
your mind is somewhere else and you cannot see that which is very obvious and
surrounds you. You see the horizon; you don't see yourself. You see the distant; you
don't see the close-by. And God is your neighbour, God is really inside you, you are
God. But that is very close and you don't have any time or energy to look for the close.
You will have time and energy only when your desire for the distant has disappeared.
NAFS is a neurotic state of mind. Just look inside yourself and you will always find
NAFS. Why does this NAFS exist at all? What is the reason for its existence in the
first place?
Man is afraid of his inner emptiness -- so much so that the inner seems almost a kind
of death. Look within and there is emptiness and nothing else -- a silence, an eternal
silence, never disturbed, not even a ripple arises there. Not even you are there -because you are noisy, you are the crowd. At the innermost core of your being there is
pure emptiness, and that creates fear. One wants to fill it with something, one wants to
stuff it with something, one wants to become something so that this emptiness can be
dropped. That's the reason why nafs exists. It is because of the fear of inner emptiness
that you go on stuffing yourself.
You may have watched it. When you are feeling very empty, you start eating, when
you are feeling very lonely you start eating, when you are missing your beloved or
lover you start eating too much. You stuff yourself. You just want to have a feeling of
fullness. But no food goes into your inner emptiness, it only stuffs your stomach. It is
destructive to your body if you eat too much. And you remain empty.
Somebody becomes a food addict, somebody becomes a power addict, somebody
becomes a money addict -- they are all addictions. These are the real drugs. LSD or
marijuana are nothing compared to money, compared to power. These are the really
destructive elements. And I am not saying that LSD or marijuana are not destructive;
they are destructive, but they are nothing compared to money or power.
Whenever you are trying to fill your inner emptiness with anything, you are going
against God -- because that inner emptineSs is the face of God. When you stop
stuffing yourself with food, money, power, etcetera, etcetera, then suddenly you
become aware of who you are.
Sufis say that the first thing to be understood, experienced, is NAFS, and by
understanding it there is a dropping. It is not that you have to drop it -- just to see it is
to drop it, just to realise the fact and the absurdity and the neurosis of it is to drop it.
That dropping has a beautiful name -- Sufis call it TAMBAH.
TAMBAH means turning; TAMBAH means exactly what Jesus says when he says
'repent'. The original root word from which 'repent' comes has nothing to do with
repentance. It means 'return to the source'. Return -- that is the meaning of repent. It
has no idea of guilt in it, just return to your source. Sufis call it TAMBAH, Patanjali
calls it PRATYAHAR -- turning towards oneself -- and Mahavira calls it
PRANKRAMANA -- coming back home. It is the same process.
First understand the nature of NAFS, desire, desire for more, that mad, neurotic desire
for more -- understand it, and TAMBAH happens. Seeing the futility of it you turn
back. Then you don't rush towards the horizon, you start moving towards yourself. A
one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, an about-turn, that s what TAMBAH IS.
Through this turning the third thing starts happening -- Sufis call it HAL. HAL means
a state of being, but a temporary one; an altered state, a changed state of being; a state
of no-mind, but for single moments, like flashes. For a single moment you are rooted
in your being and again you are uprooted. It comes like lightning. HAL means a state
of consciousness, but temporary.
In the beginning it will happen only in a momentary way -- sometimes it will be there
and sometimes it will not be there. It will be like a ray of light in your darkness, or a
single star in the dark sky, clouded sky. And sometimes you will be able to see it and
sometimes you will not be able to see it. This is called HAL, what in America they
now call 'altered states of consciousness'. In fact, I have heard a suggestion from
somebody that now they should be told to change the name of the United States of
America. Jimmy Carter should be told to change the name to Altered States of
America. That will be more relevant. The con-sciousness is changing. Man is more
interested in consciousness now than ever.
NAFS is interested in the content -- the content that you can fill your consciousness
with. The content may be money or food or knowledge or something else, but NAFS
is interested in the content. After TAMBAH, after the turning in, one becomes
interested, not in the content, but in consciousness itself. What is this inner emptiness
that you want to fill? First see it, know it, first become acquainted with it, first have a
real taste of it, have a bite of it and chew it and see whether it is something to be filled
or something to be enjoyed. And the moment you have a taste of it, then everything
you have tasted before will look worthless. This emptiness is fullness itself; this inner
emptiness is the greatest joy there is; it is a benediction.
First you will have HALS, states -- sometimes like a flash you will be enlightened -but then it is gone and you have fallen into misery again, deeper than before. If you
don't create a NAFS for the HALS.... There is a possibility that you may start
hankering for more -- then you have fallen back. Then you have turned back again.
Again you have created a horizon, again the mind has come in, again there is the
desire-nature.
Remember it -- to many people here, HALS happen. When the HAL happens, when
you have a taste of that state, naturally you start desiring more. You become very, very
desirous. A great longing arises -- how to have it every day? And how to have it again
and again -- morning, afternoon, evening, night -- how to have it more?
I can understand. It is so beautiful, it is such a benediction, that one would like to have
it. But if you start expecting, desiring, you will miss even the hals. Even these
flash-like lightnings will disappear, even these moments will be no more -- because
they can happen only when NAFS is not there. If you enjoy the HAL and you don't
become desirous of it -- when it is there you feel grateful, when it is gone you don't
hanker for it, you wait without desiring, you wait patiently, without demanding -- it
will come more and more.
Then comes the fourth state -- HALS become permanent. That is called MAGAMA.
MAGAMA means that one has arrived. Then it is always there. Then- it is not that it
happens to you -- now you are it. From NAFS to MAGAMA, this is the journey of a
Sufi. And the whole journey consists of experiment, experience. It is existential.
You will have to go a little deeper into the details of the state of NAFS because the
more you are acquainted with it, the more is the possibility for TAMBAH, for
conversion, for repentance, for pratyahar, for that great leap and change of direction.
There are three states of NAFS, there are three kinds of sleepy people in the world.
Just the other day there was a question: You SAY MAN IS ASLEEP, BUT ARE ALL
MEN ASLEEP IN THE SAME WAY? No, they are not. Everybody is asleep but there
are differences in sleep too, very significant differences.
The first are called the hostiles. They are asleep. They are asleep in their rage, in their
anger, in their hostility, hatred, in their violence, in their aggressiveness, in their
ambition. The first kind of sleep is that of the hostile.
You can see people. The hostile person is very apparent. He is always angry about
everything. He is destructive. He wants to destroy everything. The hostiles become
the revolutionaries -- Mao, Stalin, Lenin. They want to destroy. They want to destroy
the whole past, they want to destroy the whole society. Of course, when you want to
destroy, you cannot destroy as a pure act -- you have to give a utopia to peoples'
minds, like an opium. All utopias are opiums. You have to tell them, 'We are going to
change the society for a better state, that's why we are destroying' -- otherwise nobody
will support it. You have to create a dream. When you create the dream and people
become infatuated with the dream, then you can destroy.
That beautiful society never comes; it has never come, it is never going to come.
That's why a man like Buddha never talks about the society. No social revolution is
going to happen. Who is going to do it? The hostiles do it. They are really interested
in destruction. The idea of creating a better society is just a strategy to destroy, to
destroy without guilt.
This hostile person is one extreme. His anger is not particularly directed towards
something, he is simply angry about everything. He is angry. He has no object of
anger -- everything and everybody seems to be inimical to him. Not only persons but
things look inimical towards him. He is inimical, that's why the whole existence looks
inimical. His basic attitude is negative. His sleep is a very, very angry sleep.
One thing is good about him -- he is hot. He is not cold. He is really burning, boiling.
He can be changed more easily than the other two kinds because he is hot. His fire is
alive -- wrongly directed, but the direction can be changed. He has power. If his
direction is changed, if his anger becomes a fuel for inner transformation, he can
become a Buddha easily.
It is not just a coincidence that all the great Masters in India came from the warrior
race -- KSHATRIYAS. Brahmins have not produced so many enlightened people. One
would have expected that Brahmins would have produced more enlightened people
because they are well-versed people -- logically, philosophically, in every way. They
are good people but they have not produced many enlightened people. Buddha was a
warrior, so was Mahavira, so was Neminath, so was Adinath, and so on, so forth. The
twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS of the Jainas, Buddha, Ram, Krishna, Nanak -- they
are all KSHATRIYAS, they all come from the warrior race. It is not accidental. If the
hostile person changes, he can become a Buddha very easily. So this is the best kind
of sleep -- the hostile sleep.
That's why my work here consists first of making you hot through encounter, through
other cathartic groups, through Dynamic meditation, Kundalini. The whole point is to
create more fire in you, to bring your hostility to the surface -- because from there,
there is a possibility of change.
The second kind of sleep and the second kind of people are the phonies. This is the
other extreme. One extreme is the hostile, the other extreme is the phony. These are
the goody-goody people -- always smiling, false and pseudo, always deceptive, never
true. The hostile is true. He shows his face -- whatsoever it is. It is ugly, certainly ugly,
but he shows it. The phony has an ugly face but he has a mask. You never see his real
face.
The politician and the priests, these are the phonies. The Brahmins could not produce
so many enlightened people -- they are the phonies. They are always trying to be
sweet. This is a trick to protect themselves. These are the people who are very
repressed. They go on repressing all hostility. The hostility remains but goes into the
basement, hides in the unconscious.
The hostile is a simple person. You can always trust an angry person, remember.
Never trust a person who is always smiling. I have heard about people who even smile
in their sleep. They are so phony that the smile has become almost a fixed state of
affairs. The lips have become paralysed in a smile. The lips cannot do anything else.
The smile has become material, concrete. It is not a thing that comes from the heart, it
is a painted thing.
This is the person who is very orthodox. The first kind becomes revolutionary, the
second kind is orthodox. He always believes in the rule; he is very obedient to society.
In whatsoever society he is, he is obedient to it. He does not bother about what he is
obedient to; he is simply obedient. These people become very respectable, naturally -because they obey the society. They never do anything wrong, they are always right.
Their ego trip is for the right. They ride on the right -- they are the righteous people.
They always do the right thing, they never do the wrong thing. Naturally they get all
kinds of respect and honour from the society. These are the respectable people.
The second kind is more difficult because the sleep of the second kind has more sweet
dreams in it. The first kind is suffering from nightmares. Remember, when you suffer
from a nightmare there is every possibility for you to awake. It always happens. When
you really go into a nightmare and when the nightmare becomes too much, you are
suddenly awake, your sleep is broken. The nightmare itself automatically works
against the sleep. But when you are sleeping a sweet sleep and you are seeing
beautiful dreams of paradise and heaven, then there is no problem -- the sleep can
continue. A sweet dream defends the sleep, a nightmare is against the sleep.
So the second kind, the respectable person, is the least religious person in the world.
And, naturally, he is very cold. He cannot afford to he hot. These are the people who,
if they come to this ashram, they immediately escape.
There is one woman -- she has been here for one month -- she only listens to me and
then she escapes. She goes on writing letters to me: 'I want to see you, Osho, but I
can't do your meditations. They are dangerous. And I can't go to any group because
they are dangerous too. I can only listen to you. I love what you say.'
But what kind of love is this? If you love what I say, then that love will lead you
naturally into what I am saying to do. If you avoid the meditations, if you avoid the
groups that go on here, then what kind of love is this?
With words you know that no change is going to happen. You can absorb words -- you
have become very, very expert at absorbing words. And with words you are free. You
can interpret in your own way. You can drop a few words, you can add a few words,
you can change the very quality of what I say. But you cannot change the meditation
and you cannot change a group process like encounter. You will have to go into it.
And one is afraid.
Now this woman is a phony. She is in a deeper kind of sleep than a hostile person. A
hostile person can be changed because he is hot. This woman is phony. She is cold,
ice cold. When the water is hot it is very close to evaporation -- just a little more heat
and it will evaporate. When you have ice cubes, first you have to melt them, then you
have to heat them. The process is longer.
The third kind, the most difficult kind, are the zombies -- the hostiles, the phonies and
the zombies. The zombie is just in the middle -- he is neither hostile nor phony. He is
just in the middle, he is both. He is dead. He is neither hot nor cold, he is impotent.
He has not taken any side, he is afraid. He just hangs in the middle. He cannot decide.
So he has decided to be just a machine.
These people -- the zombies -- are just dead. They are walking, talking corpses. They
are mechanical. They only know life as a rut, as a routine. They are ritualistic. The
zombies become great saints and mahatmas; the hostiles can become revolutionaries,
criminals, sinners; the phonies are very respectable people, the gentleman and the
lady.
Just yesterday I was reading about a court decision in the United States of America. In
some American state there was a case for a divorce and the magistrate ruled that a
person who is divorcing his wife and a woman who is divorcing her husband should
not be called gentleman and lady -- they are simply man and woman.
I was surprised. In the twentieth century? And in America, out of all other lands! The
magistrate ruled that a person who is divorcing is no longer a gentleman, he is just an
ordinary man. He cannot be addressed as 'gentleman'. And the lady who is divorcing
-- of course, how can she be a lady? Impossible. No respect should be shown to them,
that's what the magistrate was saying.
These phonies get all the respect. They are the gentlemen and the ladies. They become
the priests, the politicians; they are the powerful people. And the zombies become the
saints and the mahatmas. Only they can, only they can afford to. They are so dead.
They sit just like dead statues.
It is said that once a seeker came to Rinzai, the great Zen Master. And the seeker said,
'I have been to other monasteries, I have learned much. Now I come to you, the
greatest Master of this age.'
Rinzai looked at the man. He must have seen that he seemed to be a zombie. Rinzai
said, 'What have you learned? Just show me.'
Now this was a rare question. He had been to other Masters, other teachers, other
monasteries -- they never asked, 'Show me.' Yes, they asked questions and he
answered perfectly well because he was very well-versed. For thirty years he had been
in the profession of seeking, so he knew all the trade secrets -- but, 'Show it!' How do
you show your philosophy?
He could not think of anything else so he just closed his eyes and sat in a Buddha
ASANA, absolutely like a statue. And Rinzai laughed, hit him hard on the head and
said, 'You fool! Get out from here! We have enough Buddhas. Can't you see in the
temple?' Rinzai used to live in a temple which was known as the Ten Thousand
Buddha Temple. There were ten thousand statues. He said, 'Look, we have ten
thousand fools like you. Marble statues. We don't need any more. Get out! Simply
don't show your face again!'
Zombies can become great mahatmas because they are so dead. Life has shrunken in
them. It is not that they have become desireless, no. they have become lifeless. When
there is no life there is no desire -- but that is not the point. A real sage is one who has
no desire and absolute life. The false saint is one who has killed his life because that is
the simplest way to kill his desire. But he is dead.
These are the three kinds of sleepy people and these are the three kinds of NAFS. You
have to watch your own -- what kind of NAFS YOU have. If you are a hostile, be
happy, things are easier. If you are a phony, be happy, things are a little more difficult
but still possible. If you are a zombie then still be happy that you have understood that
you are a zombie -- some possibility is there!
Now this beautiful dialogue.
THIS INTERCHANGE BETWEEN THE SUFI MYSTIC, SIMAB, AND A
NOBLEMAN NAMED MULAKAB, IS PRESERVED IN ORAL TRANSMISSION
AS A DIALOGUE OFTEN STAGED BY WANDERING DERVISHES.
MULAKAB: 'TELL ME SOMETHING OF YOUR PHILOSOPHY SO THAT I MAY
UNDERSTAND.'
It looks like a very relevant question. 'TELL ME SOMETHING OF YOUR
PHILOSOPHY SO THAT I MAY UNDERSTAND' -- as if by telling some-thing one
can understand.
We believe too much in words -- as if the word itself is the truth, as if the letter is the
spirit. It is not, but we have been brought up on words. All that we know is words. So
naturally the seeker comes to the Master, the mystic, Simab, and asks, 'TELL ME
SOMETHING OF YOUR PHILOSOPHY.'
Now Sufism has no philosophy. Sufism cannot be told. It can be lived, it can be
experienced, but it can't be told. And it is not that Sufis have not tried to tell it, they
have tried to tell it, but it goes on slipping. That's what I go on doing. I go on telling it
but it goes on slipping. No word ever does any justice to truth; all words falsify. Sufis
agree perfectly with Lao Tzu when he says, 'The Tao that can be said is Tao no more.
The truth that can be uttered has already become a lie.'
You will have to experience it on your own. But man is imitative, so entirely imitative,
that he just imitates other peoples' words, their philosophies, their beliefs.
I have heard....
Two men and a young lady were on the Pullman going to California and decided they
had better get acquainted.
One man said, 'My name is Paul, but I'm not an apostle.'
The other said, 'My name is Peter, but I'm not a saint.'
The girl muttered, 'My name is Mary, and I don't know what the hell to say.'
That's how it goes. We just see what is happening, what people are doing, and we do it.
We imitate.
In sleep, man remains a monkey, and as far as sleepers are concerned Darwin is
perfectly right that man is born out of the monkey. Otherwise how can you explain so
much monkeyish-ness, imitativeness?
The new minister stood at the church door greeting parishioners as they departed after
the close of the service. The people were generous in complimenting the clergyman
for his sermon, except for one fellow who said to him, 'Pretty dull sermon, Reverend.'
And in a minute or two the same man appeared again in line and said, 'Pretty dull
sermon, Reverend.'
Once again the man appeared, this time muttering, 'You really didn't say anything at
all, Reverend.'
When he got the opportunity, the minister pointed out the triple-threat pest to one of
the deacons and enquired about him.
'Oh, don't let that guy bother you,' said the deacon. 'He's a poor soul who goes around
repeating whatever he hears other people saying.'
Just watch your mind. What have you got there? Anything original? Anything
authentically yours? Or do you just go on repeating what other people are saying?
Drop that repetitiveness, then the door opens to experience. Philosophy is not going to
help -- only insight into your being will help.
An elderly lady had a parrot that was using offensive language. Every time the lady
would come into the room it would say, 'I wish she was dead, I wish she was dead.'
She told her pastor about it and he said, 'I have a parrot, too, but it is never rude. You
bring your parrot over and leave it for several weeks, and maybe it will take up my
parrot's good behaviour.'
So she did. Returning for it after a time, she opened the door and walked in. Her
parrot saw her and said, 'I wish she was dead.' Then the minister's parrot chimed in
and said, 'Amen, Lord, grant her request.'
Even parrots are not as parrot-like as man. Man is more of a parrot than the so-called
parrots. And if parrots repeat and imitate, they can be pardoned, forgiven, but man
cannot be forgiven. Never forgive yourself for imitativeness otherwise you will
remain an imitator. Stop forgiving yourself for imitativeness. Let imitativeness be the
original sin. And when I say original sin, I mean it.
The word 'sin' is very beautiful. It means separation. If you are imitative you will
remain separate from your real self; if you are imitative you will remain separate from
God -- because only your original self can have a meeting with God. This false, this
pseudo mask cannot have any encounter with God. The false cannot encounter the
real, only the real can encounter the real.
MULAKAB: 'TELL ME SOMETHING OF YOUR PHILOSOPHY SO THAT I MAY
UNDERSTAND.'
THE MYSTIC REPLIED: 'YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND UNLESS YOU HAVE
EXPERIENCE.'
Understanding is a by-product of experience, a shadow of experience, a consequence
of experience. It is not a pre-requirement. You need not have understanding to
experience -- just the reverse is the case. You need experience to understand a thing.
You cannot understand unless you have experienced. And God is not a hypothesis,
God is not speculation, it is not that we think God is -- God is, whether we think or
not. We can go on denying God, that doesn't make any difference -- God still is. God
is existential. Whether you believe or disbelieve has no effect on reality. Your belief,
your disbelief, is not going to change that which is. So what is the point of belief,
disbelief? Drop them and try to see whatsoever is the case. When that has been looked
into, understanding arises.
MULAKAB: 'I DO NOT HAVE TO UNDERSTAND A CAKE TO KNOW
WHETHER IT IS BAD.'
Very logical. In life you need not experience many things -- still you feel that you
know. But the same logic cannot be extended towards God.
In life you are living with sleepy people who function through belief. If you follow
their belief you will have a convenient life. Your belief will help you to remain
comfortable and convenient. But with God you are not searching for convenience or
security or safety, with God you are hankering for truth.
Just the other day I was reading about a college in America. Suddenly it got a great
donation, a great endowment, and it decided to become a university. So they wanted a
motto for the university door. They decided that the motto should be in Sanskrit, not
in Latin, not in Greek, and they decided that the motto should mean something like
this: Truth unfolding like a flower.
So they searched in America for the greatest Sanskrit scholar and they approached a
professor who was a world-renowned authority on Sanskrit. And they said, 'This is
what we want as a motto on the university door: Truth unfolding as a flower. Please
translate it into Sanskrit. We want to put it in Sanskrit.'
The professor refused. He said, 'It cannot be translated into Sanskrit because the
Eastern mind says that truth has no unfolding, truth simply is. It does not grow. It is
not an unfolding. You discover it, you grow towards it, but truth never grows. You
come close or you go away, but truth remains the same. Growth happens in you, not
in truth. So truth is not unfolding, and truth is not a flower -- because the flower is
sometimes in the seed and sometimes in the tree and sometimes in the bud. And then
it flowers. It has a temporal procession. Truth simply is; it is not evolution. It is
simply there. It has no past, no present, no future. It is eternally the same.'
I agree with that Sanskrit scholar. He was right. It is not that it cannot be translated
into Sanskrit, it can be translated into the Sanskrit language -- but it will not be the
spirit of the East. The translation will be false. It will not show the right understanding
about truth.
If you believe or you disbelieve, you remain distant. There is something between you
and truth -- your belief or your disbelief.
If you want to know the truth, you need not have anything between you and the truth,
you have to remove all furniture -- the furniture of the mind. You have just to see.
Your eyes have to be completely unclouded.
Simab: 'IF YOU ARE LOOKING AT GOOD FISH AND YOU THINK THAT IT IS A
BAD CAKE, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND LESS...'
-- because your understanding is wrong, upside-down. It is a fish and you
think it is a bad cake. Your knowledge is not going to help you. It is better that you
have less knowledge. No knowledge will be the most perfect thing, then there will be
nothing to distract you from the truth. All knowledge distracts. When you know, IT
interferes -- hence one has to be innocent. Only innocents know -- because those who
think they know are already corrupted by knowledge.
'... YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND LESS, AND TO UNDERSTAND IT BETTER...
Now the word 'understanding' is being used in two different senses: one in the sense
of knowledge and the other in the sense of meditation; one in the sense of
intellectuality, the other in the sense of intelligence.
The English word 'meditation' comes from a Sanskrit root 'MEDHA'. MEDHA means
intelligence. In fact, it would be more correct to call it 'MEDHA-tation' rather than
'meditation' -- because meditation has a wrong connotation in the Western mind. It
appears as if you are thinking about something, meditating upon it. No, to bring it
closer to home it will be MEDHA-tation. MEDHA means intelligence -- not thinking
about something, just being intelligent, alert, aware, pure, innocent.
When you don't have any knowledge, you know; when you have knowledge, your
eyes are covered and you cannot know.
'IF YOU ARE LOOKING AT GOOD FISH AND YOU THINK THAT IT IS A BAD
CAKE, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND LESS, AND TO UNDERSTAND IT
BETTER, MORE THAN YOU NEED ANYTHING ELSE.'
Now the seeker wants to know more about the Sufi philosophy, and the mystic says,
'If you really want to understand more about the Sufi philosophy it will be good if you
don't know anything at all. Come with that state of mind we call not-knowing.'
MULAKAB: 'THEN WHY DO YOU NOT ABANDON BOOKS AND LECTURES
IF EXPERIENCE IS THE NECESSITY?'
That's how the logical mind goes -- either or. The logical mind is always divided into
either or. It does not know how to connect opposite polarities. It does not know how
to use the words 'and' and 'both'.
First Mulakab wants to know about Simab's philosophy, the Sufi philosophy; then,
because he is saying there is no philosophy, there is only experience, Mulakab moves
the other extreme -- if not this, then the other. Then he says, 'THEN WHY DO YOU
NOT ABANDON BOOKS AND LECTURES IF EXPERIENCE IS THE
NECESSITY?'
Many people come to me and they say to me too, 'You go on saying that it cannot be
said, but why do you go on talking then? You go on repeating again and again that
theories and philosophies and systems are of no help, they are barriers, but you still go
on talking to us. Then why, why do you talk at all?'
That is the logical mind: either talk with the condition that through talk truth can be
understood, or don't talk at all. But both will be absurd positions.
The Master has to talk in such a way that he makes you aware that talk is not going to
help. The Master has to use words in such a way that you don't get entangled with
words. The Master has to explain many things to you and to simultaneously keep you
alert so you don't get caught in explanation. The Master has to use the mind to relate
to you because you exist in mind and there is no other way to relate to you. But he has
to keep you alert, he has to remind you again and again that this is not the whole thing,
that this is just the beginning, that this is not even the real thing. the real is to come.
He has to keep you alert so that you can move -- move from words to wordlessness,
from theories to truth, from philosophies to experience.
A moment comes when the Master can be silent, but that is possible only when the
disciple has come to relate to the Master in a totally different way -- from the heart.
Even when Buddha was alive, and when thousands of disciples were there, when he
kept silent one day only one disciple, Mahakashyap, understood it -- out of those
thousands of disciples.
It is said of a Zen Master, Huen Shah, that one day he was about to preach a sermon
when a bird began to sing nearby. He remained silent, pointed to the bird, and left.
Later on he said he could not have improved upon the bird, that's why he remained
silent. The bird was saying the same truth that he was going to say and in a far
superior way. But I don't know what happened to the disciples -- whether anybody
understood it, whether anybody got the message.
Even with Buddha only Mahakashyap smiled when Buddha kept silent and looked at
a lotus flower in his hand. All were anxious to hear the words and he was not speaking
and not speaking. And then Mahakashyap laughed and Buddha called him and gave
the lotus flower to him and said to the other disciples, 'That which can be said through
words I have said to you, and that which cannot be said through words I have given to
Mahakashyap.'
Yes, there is something beyond the words, but you have to be prepared through words
for the beyond.
But this logical fallacy happens. The logical mind believes that either everything is
possible through words or nothing is possible through words.
A disciple of the Holy Yehudi had taken upon himself the discipline of silence, and for
three years had spoken no words save those of the Torah and prayer. The Yehudi sent
for him and said, 'Young man, how is it that I do not see a single word of yours in the
world of truth?'
Yehudi was one of the Hassid Masters.
When the young man justified himself by speaking of 'the vanity of speech' the
Yehudi replied, 'He who only learns and prays is murdering the word of his own soul.
Whatever you have to say can be vanity or it can be truth.'
Listen to it again.
Yehudi said, 'Whatever you have to say can be vanity or it can be truth. Come to me
after the Evening Prayer and I shall teach you how to talk. Real words are not vain;
vain words are not real.'
Yes, there is a reality to words too. It is not ultimate, it is only indicative. It is like a
gesture. When I am pointing to the moon with my finger, my finger is not the moon.
Don't mistake it. And don't start clinging to my finger, that is not the moon. But don't
move to the other extreme -- if the finger is not the moon then how can you indicate
the moon by the finger? That is absurdity again. Either you cling to the finger because
you say, 'You are showing the finger,' or you say, 'Then don't show the finger -- the
finger is not the moon.'
But the moon can be indicated by the finger and the finger is not the moon. The words
can become indicative; they are gestures.
MULAKAB: 'THEN WHY DO YOU NOT ABANDON BOOKS AND LECTURES
IF EXPERIENCE IS THE NECESSITY?'
SIMAB: 'BECAUSE THE OUTWARD IS THE CONDUCTOR TO THE INWARD.
BOOKS WILL TEACH YOU SOMETHING OF THE OUTWARD ASPECTS OF
THE INWARD, AND SO WILL LECTURES. WITHOUT THEM YOU WILL
MAKE NO PROGRESS.'
The outward and the inward are not so different. The outward is also part of the
inward, the outermost part, of course. And the inward is also part of the outward, the
innermost part of the outward, of course. But they are not separate, they are together.
Never separate them. They are one reality, just like the circumference and the centre.
The centre cannot exist without the circumference, and the circumference cannot exist
without the centre. If the circumference is there without the centre it cannot be called
the circumference, and if the centre is there without the circumference of which it is
the centre, it is not the centre any more. Of what? The centre depends on the
circumference as much as the circumference depends on the centre. The surface is
part of the depth as the depth is part of the surface. This is the right understanding.
SIMAB: 'BECAUSE THE OUTWARD IS THE CONDUCTOR TO THE INWARD.'
Many times it happens that people come to me and they say, 'We want to be
sannyasins but what is the use of the outward: the dress and mala and things like that?'
A woman wrote to me, 'Osho, I love you and I want to surrender to you but I cannot
surrender to the orange dress and I hate your mala.'
This is the logical mind. The logical mind says, 'The inner is the inner and the outer is
the outer, so love Osho from the inner. What is the need of any outward show?' But
when you are hungry, you eat something from the outside. You don't say, 'Hunger is
inside and I cannot go to Vrindavan and I don't care a bit about food. What is the need
of food? Hunger is inside.'
But the inside hunger is fulfilled, satisfied, by outside food -- because the outside is
constantly changing into the inside. When you eat, you chew, you digest; it becomes
the inside. And what is inside is constantly becoming your outside. Life is changing
always -- moving from the inside to the outside, from the outside to the inside. It is a
tremendous movement between polarities.
So don't create such logical problems for yourself. Don't divide. You are one. In and
out, you are both. Hence sannyas has to be both together -- inner and outer.
Just look at the absurdity. You say, 'I love you, Osho, but I hate your mala. ' This is not
possible. One thing must be wrong: either you don't love me or you can't hate the
mala. If you hate the mala you can't love me; if you love me you can't hate the mala.
But I can understand why the statement is possible. You divide the outer and the inner.
When you love a man or a woman you divide the outer and the inner. You say, 'I will
not touch your body because I I love you from the inside and what is the point of
touching your body? I love you but I hate your body,' Have you said that to any
woman some time? -- 'I love you but I hate your, body.' She will never forgive you.
Have you said that to any man, 'I love you tremendously but don't touch me, don't
make any outward show. What is the point of hugging and kissing and embracing? No
need. We can love as inner centres.' But is that love going to grow? Is that love going
to fulfil? Is that love going to become a contentment? It is not possible.
SIMAB: 'BECAUSE THE OUTWARD IS THE CONDUCTOR TO THE INWARD.
BOOKS WILL TEACH YOU SOMETHING OF THE OUTWARD ASPECTS OF
THE INWARD, AND SO WILL LECTURES. WITHOUT THEM YOU WILL
MAKE NOT PROGRESS.'
MULAKAB: 'BUT WHY SHOULD WE NOT BE ABLE TO DO SO WITHOUT
BOOKS?'
Logic wants to be consistent and life is not consistent. Logic says that if books are not
needed then they are not needed. Then why can't we do without them? Then why don't
you be consistent? Why are you not consistent? Either say books are useless and burn
them or say they are useful and worship them.
But a man who understands life is not an extremist. He says, 'Books can be used, but
there is no need to worship them. Books can be used, but there is no need to burn
them.' Both are extremist, partial standpoints.
Sufis will not agree with the Zen Masters burning scriptures, because when you burn
the scriptures it shows that you are still too much attached to them -- otherwise why
burn them? Why take so much trouble? You have some attachment, some obsession -either you can worship or you can burn but you cannot just use them. Sufis are more
down to earth.
People simply jump from one extreme to another the logic always can deceive you
because it pretends a kind of consistency.
A little man tip-toes up M.G. Road, stopping at intervals to scatter some kind of
powder here and there on the street from a bag in his hand. His behaviour is so odd
that he soon attracts a crowd of followers. A policeman decides to investigate and
approaches the man.
'What's in that bag?' says the policeman.
'Woffle dust,' says the little man.
'What's that?' asks the policeman.
'Woffle dust is my own discovery,' says the man, 'and is for the eradication of most
varieties of poisonous snakes, lions, tigers, elephants, etcetera, etcetera.'
'But there are no snakes, no lions, no tigers, no elephants on M.G. Road,' explains the
policeman.
'I know,' says the little man. 'This is pretty powerful stuff.'
This is very consistent. It is because of this stuff that you will not see any elephants,
tigers, lions. This is pretty powerful stuff.
Logic is very self-fulfilling. It creates a very consistent world of concepts. If you
decide that the scriptures are useful then logic says: 'Worship them. Put them on a
high pedestal. They are truth, embodied truth.' Or if you say: 'Truth is not in the
words,' then scriptures are meaningless, then throw them away, burn them. Either
worship them or insult them.
But the really practical man, the pragmatic man, will use them. He will neither
worship nor insult them -- because both are emotional attitudes. You don't worship a
timetable and you don't burn a timetable either -- you simply use it. All scriptures are
timetables for the inner journey. They are not the inner journey, remember, they are
maps. The map of India is not India. Seeing the map of India you have not visited
India, but there is no need to burn it because it is not India. It can be helpful. It can be
helpful. It can be of tremendous help. It can bring you to the real India.
And a road map is a must when you are travelling in a strange land. A road map
contains many things -- except one thing: how to fold it! It can be used. That is the
pragmatic standpoint.
MULAKAB: 'BUT WHY SHOULD WE NOT BE ABLE TO DO SO WITHOUT
BOOKS?'
SIMAB: 'FOR THE SAME REASON THAT YOU CANNOT THINK WITHOUT
WORDS. YOU HAVE BEEN REARED ON BOOKS; YOUR MIND IS SO
ALTERED BY BOOKS AND LECTURES, BY HEARING AND SPEAKING, THAT
THE INWARD CAN ONLY SPEAK TO YOU THROUGH THE OUTWARD.
WHATEVER YOU PRETEND YOU CAN PERCEIVE.'
We have been reared on books. Our mind is nothing but words, logic, philosophy. If
this mind has to be converted then it has to be approached in a way it can understand.
Hence Masters use words, Masters even use logic. Masters use all that is of any help
to you.
But their whole effort is to take you beyond yourself. They use words to go beyond
words and they use your mind to drop it, to become mindless, to become a no-mind.
MULAKAB: 'DOES THIS APPLY TO EVERYONE?'
Again this is logic trying to find consistency. 'DOES IT APPLY TO EVERYONE?'
Logic always generalises, and reality is not a generalisation. Unique individuals are
here, there are no generalisations. Have you ever seen a human being? You see
Teertha, you see Maneesha, you see Sudha, you see Sheela, you see Madhuri -- you
see many people. but you never see a human being. A human being is a generalisation.
You will never come across a human being. You will always come across concrete
men, women, not human beings. Concrete. Logic lives in generalisations.
MULAKAB ASKED: 'DOES THIS APPLY TO EVERYONE?'
SIMAB: 'IT APPLIES TO WHOM IT APPLIES. IT APPLIES ABOVE ALL TO
THOSE WHO THINK IT DOES NOT APPLY TO THEM!'
This is of tremendous importance. Keep it always in your consciousness.
'IT APPLIES ABOVE ALL TO THOSE WHO THINK IT DOES NOT APPLY TO
THEM!'
-- because that is the last deception the mind can play. That is the last trick, strategy,
of the mind to protect itself -- 'It does not apply to me.' You always become a victim
of that trick -- 'It does not apply to me.'
Here people write to me: 'Osho, what you said was perfectly beautiful. Many people
will be benefitted by it, many -- but not me.'
I have heard about a man who used to come to a church to listen to a priest, and every
day, whenever he was leaving, he would say to the priest, 'You did well. You
hammered well. All those people needed it.'
By and by it became a kind of drag to the priest. This man was so egoistic. It was an
everyday thing. Whenever the priest would speak, in the end the man was waiting and
he would say, 'You did well. You hammered well. These people needed it. They
deserved it. You put them right. That is going to help them.'
And the priest was waiting for the right opportunity to talk to this man. Then one day
it happened. It was raining hard and only this man turned up. Nobody else was there.
So the priest thought, 'Now, let us see what he says.' And the man was waiting.
When the priest finished and the man was going out he said, 'You did well. They
would have been benefitted very much if they had been here. Poor fellows. They
missed. I feel sorry for them!'
Remember that all that is being said by Masters is said to you, to you in particular.
Don't bring others in. And if you feel that it does not apply to you then it applies to
you certainly and absolutely. Whenever you want to make an exception for yourself,
beware. You are being befooled by your mind. Beware, and escape from the trap. And
if you are aware and you escape from the trap you can become the exception. By not
thinking you are the exception, you can become the exception. By not thinking you
are great, you can become great. By not thinking you are very humble, you can
become humble. All that is good is unselfconscious, it is innocent.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #8
Chapter title: A Holiday from Sanity
3 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709030
ShortTitle:
SUFIS208
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 97 mins
The first question:
Question 1
EVERY TIME I FALL IN LOVE, THINGS START TO CRASH ALL AROUND ME.
I GUESS THAT I LOSE MY CENTRE BUT IN THIS STATE I DON'T KNOW IF I
HAVE A CENTRE OR NOT. THINGS GET CONFUSED AND CRAZY.
The question is from Krishna Priya.
The first thing: you don't yet have a centre. That which you feel as a centre is just the
ego. It is not your true centre. It is a pseudo feeling, very illusory. So when you fall in
love, ego has to disappear. In love, the ego cannot exist. Love is something far more
true, far more authentic than you are. That's why you will always feel that things start
getting a little bit crazy -- because you cannot control them. The controller is no more.
When the ego is not there, who is there to control or to discipline? Then you are in a
chaos.
But that chaos is far more beautiful than the ugly ego. Out of that chaos all the stars
are born. Out of that chaos you are born anew. It is a rebirth. Each love affair is a new
birth.
So don't take it negatively. Don't think that you are losing something in love -- you
have nothing to lose. If you have something then there is no way to lose it. If you have
the real centre then love supports that centre, integrates it, makes it more crystallised.
Truth helps truth.
For example, if there is darkness in the room and you bring a lamp, the darkness is
destroyed. But if there is light -- there is a lamp -- then the room has more light than
before. The light is doubled.
The ego is like darkness, a false entity. It only appears to be there, it has no positive
reality. When the light of love comes, darkness goes out. If you have the real centre -what Gurdjieff calls crystallisation or what Hindus call ATMAN or what Sufis call
ROOH, spirit -- if you really have it then each love will make it more and more clear,
more and more transparent, more and more available. Each love affair will be a step -and you will be moving higher in crystallisation.
So this is the first thing to be understood: don't choose the ego, always choose love.
When it is a question between the real and the unreal, choose the real, even if
sometimes the real brings inconvenience. It does bring inconvenience. We have
chosen the unreal because it is convenient -- for no other reason have we chosen it.
There is just one reason: it is convenient. You will have to go through inconvenience.
That inconvenience is what I call TAPASHCHARYA, austerity, SADHANA. That's
what it means to be initiated into a path.
Always choose the real, howsoever bad and howsoever painful and howsoever
destructive it looks. Even if it feels like death, choose it -- and you will be benefitted
by it. Never choose the comfortable the convenient, the bourgeois, other-wise you will
live the life of a hostile -- if you are fortunate -- or the life of a phony if you are not so
fortunate, or, if you are not fortunate at all, the life of a zombie.
Love brings you out of your ego, out of your past, out of your patterned life. Hence it
appears to be a confusion.
Priya's observation is right. She says: EVERY TIME I FALL IN LOVE, THINGS
START TO CRASH ALL AROUND ME. She really falls in love. I have been
watching her love affairs. When she falls, she really falls! It is never so-so, it is never
lukewarm. She really goes mad, berserk. And it is happening again, that's why she has
put this question.
But that's good. There is nothing to be worried about. Lose the ego. Sometimes to be
mad is a basic necessity to remain sane. If you are always sane then your sanity is
suspect. Then you must be carrying a great neurosis hidden behind you, and any day it
can explode, it can erupt. You are sitting on a volcano. It is good to have a few
holidays from sanity. Sunday is good. Sometimes forget all about your sanity, all
about your rules, discipline, controlled behaviour, and all that nonsense. Sometimes
be on a holiday, relax, and go berserk.
If you go berserk deliberately, consciously, fully aware, it is going to be an incredible
experience. and you are never in danger. When you go berserk consciously you can
come back. You know how you entered into it and you know how to get out of it.
When you don't go consciously, when you are thrown by a volcano inside you, when
it is not your choice, but just an accident, when it is not that you have chosen the
holiday but you have been forced to go on a holiday, then it is not within your
capacity to come back. That's what happens to mad people. They become mad only
when they have accumulated so much madness that now it is not possible for them to
control it. It overwhelms them. And then they cannot come back.
Here, living with me, I am teaching you one basic principle of remaining sane -- that
is, deliberately, consciously, with ef-fort, to sometimes go mad. It is a good
experience. You remain available to both polarities -- sanity/insanity. You swing. You
have freedom.
The person who is always sane is not free and the person who is always insane is not
free either. But the person who can swing from sanity to insanity, and can easily
swing, smoothly, with no barrier, has great freedom. These are the people who have
known what life is. All the mystics are mad and all the mad people could have
become mystics, but they missed. And when you go on your own you can come back.
That is my basic teaching here. I teach you to be mad consciously.
So Priya, go into it. Don't be afraid. All that you lose is not worth keeping.
The second thing. She says: I GUESS I LOSE MY CENTRE BUT IN THAT STATE I
DON'T KNOW IF I HAVE A CENTRE OR NOT. That too is good observation. You
don't have one yet. The ego has to go utterly, only then will the real centre be seen.
When the clouds have disappeared you will see the sun.
Only after you have moved in deep love and the ego has really been dropped -- there
is something very valuable which can be got only if you drop the ego, and that price
has to be paid -- when you have really loved deeply, then a new kind of integration
will arise in you.
Love does two things: first it takes the ego away, then it gives you the centre. Love is
a great alchemy.
There are three kinds of love -- I call them love one, love two, love three. The first
love is object-oriented; there is an object of love. You see a beautiful woman, really
graceful, with a proportionate body. You are thrilled. You think you are falling in love.
Love has arisen in you because the woman is beautiful, because the woman is nice,
because the woman is good. Something from the object has stirred love in you. You
are not really the master of it; the love is coming from the outside. You may be a very
unloving person, you may not have the quality, you may not have that benediction,
but because the woman is beautiful you think love is arising in you. It is
object-oriented.
This is the ordinary love. This is what is known as eros. It is lust. How to possess this
beautiful object? How to exploit this beautiful object? How to make her your own?
But remember, if the woman is beautiful she is not only beautiful for you, she is
beautiful for many. So there will be many people falling in love with her. And there is
going to be great jealousy, competition, and all kinds of uglinesses that come in love,
in so called love.
Mulla Nasruddin married a very ugly woman, the ugliest possible. Naturally the
friends were puzzled and they asked Mulla, 'You have money, you have prestige, you
could have got any beautiful woman that you wanted, why have you chosen this ugly
woman?'
He said, 'There is a reason for it. I will never suffer from jealousy. This woman will
always be faithful to me. I cannot believe anybody falling in love with her. In fact,
even I am not in love with her. It is impossible. So I know nobody can love her.'
With Mohammedans it is a tradition that when the wife comes for the first time she
asks the husband -- because the Mohammedan woman has to remain behind a purdah,
behind a curtain, she cannot show her face to everybody -- so the woman asks the
husband, 'To whom can I show my face and to whom am I not allowed to show my
face?'
So when the woman asked Mulla, 'To whom can I show my face and to whom am I
not allowed to show it?' Mulla said, 'You can show it to everybody except me!'
If you are falling in love with a beautiful woman or a beautiful man, you are getting
into trouble. There is going to be jealousy, there is going to be murder, there is going
to be something. You are in trouble. And from the very beginning you will start
possessing so that there is no possibility of anything going wrong or beyond your
control. You will start destroying the woman or the man. You will stop giving freedom.
You will encroach on the woman from all sides and close all the doors.
Now the woman was beautiful because she was free. Freedom is such an ingredient in
beauty that when you see a bird on the wing in the sky, it is one kind of bird, but if
you see the same bird in a cage, it is no longer the same. The bird on the wing in the
sky has a beauty of its own. It is alive. It is free. The whole sky is his. The same bird
in a cage is ugly. The freedom is gone, the sky is gone. Those wings are just
meaningless now, a kind of burden. They remain from the past and they create misery.
Now this is not the same bird.
When you fell in love with the woman, she was free; you fell in love with freedom.
When you bring her home you destroy all possibilities of being free, but in that very
destruction you are destroying the beauty. Then one day suddenly you find that you
don't love the woman at all -- because she is beautiful no more. This happens every
time. Then you start searching for another woman and you don't see what has
happened; you don't look at the mechanism, at how you destroyed the beauty of the
woman.
This is the first kind of love -- love one. Beware of it. It is not of much value, it is not
very significant, it has no value. And if you are not aware you will remain trapped in
love one.
Love two is: the object is not important, your subjectivity is. You are loving so you
bestow your love on somebody. But love is your quality, it is not object-oriented. The
subject is overflowing with the quality of love, the very being is loving. Even if you
are alone you are loving. Love is a kind of flavour to your being.
When you fall in love, the second kind of love, there is going to be greater joy than
the first. And you will know -- because this love will know -- how to keep the other
free. Love means to give all that is beautiful to the beloved. Freedom is the most
beautiful, the most cherished goal of human consciousness, how can you take it away?
If you love a woman really, or a man, the first present, the first gift, will be the gift of
freedom. How can you take it away? You are not the enemy, you are the friend.
This the second kind of love will not be against freedom, it will not be possessive.
And you will not be worried very much that somebody else also appreciates your
woman or your man. In fact, you will be happy that you have a woman whom others
also appreciate, that you have chosen a woman whom others also desire. Their desire
simply proves that you have chosen a diamond, a valuable being, who has intrinsic
value. You will not be jealous. Each time you see someone looking at your woman
with loving eyes you will be thrilled again. You will fall in love with your woman
again through those eyes.
This second kind of love will be more a friendship than a lust and it will be more
enriching to your soul.
And this second kind of love will have one more difference. In the first kind of love,
the object-oriented, there will be many lovers surrounding the object, and there will
be fear. In the second kind of love there will be no fear and you will be free not to
bestow your love only on your beloved, you will be free to bestow your love on others
too.
In the first, the object will be one and many will be the lovers. In the second, the
subject will be one and it will be flowing in many directions, bestowing its love in
many ways on many people -- because the more you love, the more love grows. If you
love one person then naturally your love is not very rich; if you love two, it is doubly
rich; if you love many, or if you can Love the whole humanity, or you can love even
the animal kingdom, or you can love even trees, the vegetable kingdom -- then your
love goes on growing. And as your love grows, you grow, you expand. This is real
expansion of consciousness. Drugs only give you a false idea of expansion; love is the
basic ultimate drug that gives you the real idea of expansion.
And there is a possibility.... Albert Schweitzer has said 'reverence for life' -- all that
lives has to be loved. Mahavira in India has said the same thing. His philosophy of
AHIMSA, non-violence, says love all that lives. But one man, one contemporary in
america, Bugbee, has gone even one step further than Mahavira and Schweitzer. He
says, 'Have reverence for things too.' That is the ultimate in love. You don't only love
that which lives, you love even that which is. You love the chair, you love the pillars,
you love things too -- because they are also there. They also have a kind of being.
When one has come to this point -- that you love the whole existence irrespective of
what it is, that love becomes unconditional -- it is turning into prayer, it is becoming a
meditation.
The first love is good in the sense that if you have lived a loveless life it is better than
no love. But the second love is far better than the first and will have less anxiety, less
anguish, less turmoil, conflict, aggression, violence. The second kind of love will be
more of a love than the first kind, it will be more pure. In the first, the lust is too much
and spoils the whole game -- but even the second love is not the last. There is love
three -- when subject and object disappear. In the first the object is important, in the
second the subject is important, in the third there is transcendence -- one is neither a
subject nor an object and one is not dividing reality in any way: subject, object,
knower, known, lover, loved. All division has disappeared. One is simply love.
Up to the second you are a lover. When you are a lover something will hang around
you like a boundary, like a definition. With the third, all definition disappears. There
is only love; you are not. This is what Jesus means when he says. 'God is love' -- love
three. If you misunderstand the first, you will never be able to interpret rightly what
Jesus' meaning is. It is not even the second, it is the third. God is love. One is simply
Love. It is not that one loves, it is not an act, it is one's very quality.
It is not that in the morning you are loving and in the afternoon you are not loving -you are love, it is your state. It is not a HAL, it is a MAGAMA. You have arrived
home. You have become love. Now there is no division. All duality has disappeared.
The first kind of love is 'I-it'; the other is taken as a thing. That's what Martin Buber
says 'I-it'. The other is like a thing. You have to possess. My wife, my husband, my
child... and in that very possession you kill the spirit of the other.
The second kind of love Martin Buber calls 'I-thou'. The other is a person. You have
respect for the other. How can you possess somebody you respect? But Martin Buber
stops at the second; he has no understanding about the third love. Martin Buber
cannot understand Jesus. He remains a Jew. He goes up to 'I-thou'. It is a great step
from 'I-it' to 'I-thou' but it is nothing compared to the step that happens from 'I-thou' to
no dualism, to ADVARTA, to oneness, where only love remains.
Even 'I-thou' is a bit of a tension-creating phenomenon -- you are separate and the
beloved is separate. And all separation brings misery. Unless one becomes totally one
with the beloved, with the loved one, some kind of misery is bound to remain lurking
by the side. In the first the misery is very clear, in the second the misery is not so clear;
in the first it is very close, in the second it is not so close, it is far away -- but it is
there. In the third it is no more.
So Priya, I would like you to learn more of love. Move from the first to the second
and keep it in your consciousness that the third is the goal. And don't be worried about
losing yourself. Lose yourself -- because that is the only way to find yourself.
The second question:
Question 2
IT HAS BEEN SAID: 'YOU LIVE ONLY ONCE, BUT IF YOU LIVE IT RIGHT,
ONCE IS ENOUGH.'
Anurag, once is more than enough!
The third question:
Question 3
WHY DO YOU TELL WOMEN SANNYASINS NOT TO HAVE BABIES?
-- because I cannot tell it to men sannyasins!
The fourth question:
Question 4
WHEN A MAN LIVES WITH TWO WOMEN AT THE SAME TIME DOES IT
MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO HIS ENERGY?
Are you mad or masochistic or something? Is not one woman enough for you?
I have overheard....
Mulla Nasruddin's son was asking, 'Mulla, why does the law not allow men to marry
two women or more?'
And Mulla said, 'If a man cannot protect himself the law protects him!'
Even to manage one will be difficult for you right now. The question is unsigned. The
person must have been afraid to ask it. The very fear shows that you have a kind of
alertness about what you are asking.
If you are still in love one then you will be in great trouble. You will be disrupted, torn
apart between two women. With love one, one woman is more than enough.
With love two there is no problem -- but then it is not a question of two women. Then
the question about the object of love is not relevant. Then it depends on you -- how
much love you have and how much you can share.
But the questioner must be somewhere in the first kind of love where one wants to
grab as many women as possible because it is an 'I-it' relationship. Just as you would
like to have two houses, three houses, just as you would like to have more money in
the bank, so you want to have many more women. In the ancient days it was the only
way to know whether a man was rich or not -- to see how many women he had. Kings
used to have hundreds. Just thirty years ago the Nijam of Hyderabad had five hundred
women. In fact, he was not capable of recognising all of the women. But it was a kind
of prestige. He could afford them.
But women are not things, they are persons. They are souls as much as you are.
The question must have been asked by a man. You would like to possess as many
women as you can. This very possessiveness shows an unloving heart. You must be
somewhere in the first kind of love, where love is an 'I-it' relationship. Move from
there. Even one woman will be enough of a misery to you. Two will be too much.
But you may be a masochist. Then it will be a different matter altogether. A masochist
is one who wants to suffer, who loves being miserable, who is happy only when he is
miserable. A masochist is one who wants to torture himself. If you are a masochist
then it is okay. But to be a masochist is not a good thing, it is a neurosis. You will
need psychiatric treatment.
But if your love has moved from the first then the question will not be relevant at all.
Then it is not a question of having two women or one -- it is not a question of having
at all. With the second kind of love it is a question of being. You love. You love as
many people as are available. And you love in different ways: somebody you love as
your wife, somebody you love as your friend, somebody you love as your daughter,
somebody you love as your sister, somebody as your mother. and it is possible also
that you can share one kind of love with many people. But first attain to the second
kind of love. Then it is not a problem at all.
And problems utterly disappear with the third kind of love -- you are simply love.
Then you can go on loving, there is no end to it. You have infinite energy. But right
now you will not be able to go on loving, and never do anything beyond your capacity
otherwise you will become more miserable. First learn how to love one woman -- at
least learn how to love one woman. Let it become an 'I-thou' relationship. If you
create a conflict with two women around you, you will not be able to move smoothly
from 'I-it' to 'I-thou'.
The fifth question:
Question 5
THE BIBLE SAYS: 'WAIT AND EVERYTHING SHALL BE GIVEN TO YOU.'
OSHO, WHAT DO YOU SAY?
I say, 'Wait, and if you receive, it shall surely be a miracle.' Just because you wait
there is no obligation on existence's part to give it to you -- because you may be
asking for the wrong thing.
As I know people, out of a hundred, ninety-nine point nine per cent of them ask for
the wrong thing. If God is compassionate he cannot give those things to you. Your
desire is your desire; it is part of your mind, it is part of your ego. God cannot fulfil it,
should not fulfil it. If he fulfils it you will be going more and more astray, far away.
You will be moving in the dark night and you will be losing all possibilities of
re-entering the source of light.
No, all your desires cannot be fulfilled. In fact, your desire as such cannot be fulfilled.
Your desire is going to be a wrong desire. You are wrong, how can your desire
become right? There are no right desires and wrong desires, there are only right
persons and wrong persons. The wrong person is the one who has desires and the right
person is the one who has no desires. When there are no desires everything is
fulfilled.
Now this will look like a paradox. When you don't have any desire, everything is
fulfilled. Then you get that which is needed, then you get that which is beneficial. And
you are always happy because it is always a gift.
The sixth question:
Question 6
WHY DO YOU CALL MEN MONKEYS? ISN'T IT INSULTING TO THE
DIGNITY OF NAN?
Monkeys think otherwise. They don't like to be compared with men; they think it is
against the dignity of monkeys. When Darwin said that man has come out of the
monkeys, has evolved out of the monkeys, monkeys were very angry. Great treatises
have been written by the monkeys proving that man is a fall and not an evolution.
And there are arguments for it. Man has fallen from the tree to the earth. It is a fall.
And man has become less than he was. Ask any monkey. Just try to follow a monkey
and it will be impossible. How strong a monkey is! Man is no longer strong. Man is
almost impotent in comparison to the monkey. See the joy of the monkeys. Man is so
sad.
In the first place why should man think that his dignity is insulted or he is humiliated?
Monkeys are beautiful people. Yes, I know they have not produced Buddha, Rumi,
Junaid -- that's true -- but they have not produced Genghis Khan, Tamburlaine,
Alexander, Adolf Hitler, either. They have not been creating wars and killing and
murdering. Monkeys are vegetarians. Monkeys are very good people. And they are
always happy and always in the mood of fun and always celebrating.
Yes, man can rise very high -- beyond humanity -- but man can fall very low -- below
animals. And up to now, the record of going higher than humanity is not great. Once
in a while, out of millions, one person rises to become a Buddha, a Junaid, or a
Mohammed. But the others remain lurking in the darkest, muddiest consciousness.
I am reminded of a beautiful story. It happened just a few months ago. It happened in
the election days. A few things sell very well in the election days. One of those things
is the white hand-spun Gandhi cap. It sells only when there are elections. Everybody
becomes a Gandhian. Once the election is over, people forget all about Gandhi -- and
it is good that they forget all about Gandhi because whatsoever he has taught is almost
nonsensical. But when there is an election, everybody is a Gandhian; even those who
are suspected of murdering him, even they become Gandhians.
So Gandhi caps were in great demand and a man was doing great business. He was
rushing from one town to another selling Gandhi caps. One day he was coming home
from another neighbouring town. He was very tired; business had been really great.
He had sold almost one thousand caps. Just a few -- fifty, sixty -- caps were left in his
bag. And he was very tired.
So underneath a Banyan tree he rested for a while. He fell asleep. When he woke up
he saw that the bag was empty and all the caps were gone. He could not believe it
because he could not see anybody around. Then he looked up -- and it was really a
beautiful scene! All t he monkeys were sitting and enjoying the Gandhi caps. You
could have found Morarji Desai and Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram -- all kinds of
people were there. And they were really grinning and smiling. It was a trip!
At first the man also enjoyed. But then he thought, 'Sixty caps are gone. What to do
now? How to get these sixty caps back?' Then he remembered that monkeys are
imitators. Only one cap was left on his head. So he shouted, 'Abracadabra!' just to
catch the attention of the monkeys. And they all looked at what was going on. Then he
threw away his cap. The moment he threw away his cap, all the monkeys threw away
their caps. They are imitators.
He collected the caps, laughed loudly, and came home. The next day he had a fever
and could not go selling. So he sent his young son. He told him the story -- 'If by
chance, something like this happens, remember: first shout the mantra "Abracadabra!"
and then throw away your cap and you will get all your caps back. In case something
like this happens, I am telling you -- just to be safe.'
So the son went and it was a good day and he sold many, many caps. When he was
coming back, by a coincidence it happened that as he came near the Banyan tree he
also felt very tired. And it was so shady, with such beautiful foliage, and it was such a
beautiful place to rest. So he put down his bag and went to sleep. When he opened his
eyes exactly the same thing had happened. It was a miracle! The bag was empty. He
looked up -- Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram were, all sitting there, all the
great Gandhians with their Gandhi caps. And they were really enjoying and thumping
and they looked more hilarious than the father had told in the story.
But the son was not puzzled. He knew the secret. So he shouted, 'Abracadabra!' and
threw his cap. And monkeys almost went crazy. They went crazy with laughter and
shook the tree as if it was an earthquake. And do you know what happened? One
monkey who had not got a cap came down and took the son's cap. They had learned a
lesson!
Monkeys are intelligent people. Now even the cap that was Left had gone.
Man learns more slowly than monkeys. Man goes on repeating the same mistakes
again and again. What kind of dignity are you talking about? If you look at the history
of man it is the same mistakes being repeated again and again. It is almost mechanical
-- the same wars, the same violence, the same rape on nature, the same
destructiveness. Down the ages it is the same story.
Only once in a while is there an oasis in this desert of so-called humanity -- a Buddha,
a Mansoor. But they are so rare and so exceptional they can be counted out. They
need not be counted in. They are so exceptional that we cannot believe they really
existed -- they look like metaphors, they look like myths, maybe inventions of the
human mind. Just to keep his dignity, just to keep the idea of his dignity, man has
created Buddhas and Mahaviras and Krishnas and Christs. Many people suspect that
they ever existed.
And their suspicion has a reason. If you look around, you see man in such a state, in
such an ugly and neurotic state, it is impossible to believe that a Buddha is possible.
Buddha is such an exception and the ordinary neurotic man is the rule. That's why
people suspect that they may be wish-fulfilments. That's what Sigmund Freud says -that all these great people are just wish fulfilments. Man wants to be like that so he
creates mythologies.
What dignity are you talking about? Without man the earth will be far more beautiful.
It will be less poisoned. The rivers will be again pure, the air will be again unpolluted,
trees will again grow, animals will again start roaming, birds will again fly. Do you
think that without man the earth will miss much? Yes, it will miss your poisoning,
your pollution, your destruction, your wars, your blood. It will miss these things but it
will be far more beautiful. Things will be far more silent and musical; in more
harmony.
And I am not saying that man has no dignity. I never agree with people like B. F.
Skinner. Skinner has written a book, BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY, in which
he says man is not free and has no dignity either. No, I am not saying that. Man can
have dignity, but one should not accept it as a given fact. It has to be created. It is
potential but not actual. It is possible, but that possibility is only a perhaps. It has not
already happened; you cannot take it for granted. Just by being born as a man you
don't have any dignity; you just have the face of a man and all kinds of animality
inside.
You will be surprised to know that the English word 'beast' comes from a Sanskrit
word PASHU. On the surface they don't seem to be related at all -- PASHU, beast. But
in Egypt PASHU became PASHT, and then it became BAST, and then it became
'beast'. And your English word 'bastard' also comes from PASHU -- PASHT, BAST,
'bastard'. Bastard means not knowing your father. That is the situation with animals.
Who the father is no animal can say. When a man cannot show his father, cannot
identify his father, we call him a bastard.
'Beast' and 'bastard' come from a Sanskrit word PASHU, and PASHU IS tremendously
important. PASHU comes from another root PASH -- PASH means bondage. One
who is in bondage is a PASHU, IS an animal. One who is still in the bondage of the
ego, still in the bondage of the mind, still in the bondage of desire, lust, thoughts, is a
PASHU, IS an animal.
So man is man only on the surface. Only a Buddha is a real man in the depth. If
Buddha is standing by your side, you will both look alike -- but only on the surface.
Your faces resemble each other but deep down you are utterly different, radically
different. You live at the lowest rung and he lives at the highest rung. The difference is
vast, almost infinite.
Man has dignity in the sense that man can become a Buddha, but not just by being a
man. Nobody is born as a man. Humanity has to be searched for, discovered, created.
So don't think that because you are born like a human animal you are a man. No, not
yet. You can become one, that is your dignity, but you are not it already. It is your
dignity, it is your freedom, to choose to become or not to become -- and millions
choose not to become. Very rarely, few and far between, does somebody choose to
become. So millions live in a kind of disgrace, in a kind of state of sin, a state of
fallen consciousness. People live at the minimum.
And unless you live at the maximum you don't have any dignity. You CAN have it,
but you don't have it. Strive for it, make effort for it. Before death comes become
really a man.
The seventh question:
Question 7
BROWN HAS SAID: 'THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM IS NOT GUILT BUT THE
INCAPACITY TO LIVE. THE ILLUSION OF GUILT IS NECESSARY FOR AN
ANIMAL THAT CANNOT ENJOY LIFE, IN ORDER TO ORGANISE A LIFE OF
NON-ENJOYMENT.'
I will not agree -- because man is born with the capacity to live. Everybody is born
with the capacity to live -- that's what birth means: the capacity to live. Then
somewhere on the way man loses the capacity to live, becomes non-orgasmic,
becomes sad, serious, dull, stupid.
Each child is born intelligent, full of joy, wonder, adventure, enquiry; each child is
born open-ended. But somewhere, some where near the age of three or four, between
three and four, the child is distracted by the society, loses all contact with his original
capacities, and becomes a false entity. Up to the age of three the child remains a part
of nature, flowing, happy about nothing at all, happy for no reason, just happy. Just
watch a child. What has he got to be happy about? But he looks like he is on the top
of the world. With small things he can be so happy -- just collecting pebbles on the
seashore and he can be more happy than you are ever going to be. Even if you collect
KOHINOORS YOU will not be as happy. Just with pebbles, coloured stones, or
rushing after a butterfly, a child seems to be so joyous.
Somewhere near the age of three the child becomes civilised. We force him. We
initiate him into civilisation -- and civilisation up to now has been a kind of insanity, a
madhouse. We force the child to become more and more intellectual and less and less
intelligent. We force the child to be more and more prosaic and less and less poetic.
We force the child to become more and more concerned about the non-essential -money, prestige, power, ambition -- and more and more uninterested in the real joys
of life. We turn the child from a playful being into a worker. The work ethic enters.
Now duty becomes more important than love; formality becomes more important than
informal flow; manners become more important than truth; policy becomes more
important than authenticity.
Once the child has learned these strategies he is no longer happy, and when a child is
no longer happy then he needs some reason for why he is unhappy. First we make him
unhappy, then naturally one day he is going to ask, 'Why am I unhappy?' Then you
have to find reasons. Hindus say it is because in your past lives you have committed
bad karmas. Christians say it is because of the original sin -- because Adam
committed a sin of disobedience to God: that's why. And so on, so forth.
Now look at the whole stupidity of it. First you destroy the capacity to enjoy, then
naturally, when the child becomes non-enjoying, when he asks, 'Why am I miserable?
Why am I unhappy? Why can't I be happy? What has gone wrong?' Naturally you
cannot say what has gone wrong. You may not even be aware of it. You cannot say
that you have put him on the wrong track. You may not have put him on the wrong
track knowingly, you may have simply given it as a heritage. Your fathers, your
mothers, your society, have given it to you; you have given it to your children. Each
generation gives its neurosis to the new generation. Madnesses go on living. People
go on changing, madnesses go on living.
You may not be aware that each child is born with infinite potentiality to be happy.
Each child is orgasmic. But one day or other he is going to ask and you have to
provide answers. So you create guilt. You say, 'Because you have committed sins in
your past life.' You or Adam and Eve, that doesn't matter, anybody, X,Y,Z, will do -you just have to give an explanation that something has gone wrong in the past. And
the past is beyond your capacity, you cannot do anything. What can I or you do about
Adam and Eve? How can we manage him not eating the apple? It is impossible. He
has eaten it. It has already happened. We cannot undo it. And it is not a drama that is
happening right now.
One day I heard two small children -- a boy and a girl, a brother and a sister -- playing.
The boy hit the girl very hard and she started screaming. The mother came and asked,
'What is the matter? Why have you hit your sister?' And the boy said, 'We were
playing Adam and Eve and rather than giving me the apple she ate it herself.'
Now this is not a drama. We cannot change it any more. It has already happened.
Adam has eaten the fruit of knowledge. You cannot do anything; you simply feel
guilty.
Hindus look more rational. They are. But that doesn't make much difference. Hindus
say it looks absurd that you should suffer for Adam's sin. They make it more rational.
They are rational people; they have been philosophising for centuries. They say it is
your past karmas. In your past life you have done wrong. Now who is going to suffer?
You are the one to suffer for your wrong. It looks more logical.
But it is not. You go on asking a Hindu pundit, 'Then okay, in my previous life I did
wrong. What about if I was also suffering in my previous life? How far back can you
go? There must be a first life somewhere. Why did I do something wrong in my first
life? There is no other life to precede it so you cannot throw the responsibility on the
previous life. Why did it happen in the first place?' It is absurd. Nobody has the
answer.
In fact, it has not happened in the Garden of Eden and it has not happened in your past
life; It has happened in your present life and it has happened in your parents' house
and it has happened in your school and it has happened in your society, in your
country, and it has been done by the parents and the priests and the politicians. These
are the culprits, these are the criminals.
They have taken your joy and they have given you wrong things. They have taken real,
nutritious food from you and they have given you lollipops. Even if it tastes good, it
does not satisfy hunger. Even if it tastes good, it does not fulfil, it does not make you
strong. Yes, ambition tastes good. It is a lollipop. Fame, success, taste good, but deep
down you remain poor.
Look at your so-called rich people, look a little deeper into them, and they are beggars,
worse than beggars. Sometimes it is possible that a beggar may have something inside
him -- a luminous being. Buddha was a beggar, so was Mahavira. But look at your
kings and your rich people -- dull and dead. No joy surrounds them. They just go on
dragging somehow.
And you have been put on the same track. Somebody is needed to take you out of this
conditioning. That's the function of a Master -- to uncondition you, to take all the
conditioning that your parents have given you. The Master is basically against your
parents and against your society and against your politicians, hence it is not accidental
that the politicians and the parents and the society and the priests are always against a
real Master whenever he happens. That is where the conflict is.
That's what I am doing here -- taking your wrong conditioning so that your joy can
erupt again. It is there, that spring is there, nobody can destroy it. It is existential, it is
part of your being, nobody can take it away -- it has just been blocked. The spring is
there and the fresh water is still running there -- but rocks have been put around you.
You have been blocked. Once those rocks have been taken away again you will
become a child. It will be a rebirth. Again you will start flowing. Again your eyes will
have lustre and your face will have joy. Again you will become luminous. That's what
Jesus means when he goes on saying, 'Only those who are like children will be able to
enter into the kingdom of my God.'
You ask: BROWN HAS SAID: 'THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM IS NOT GUILT BUT
THE INCAPACITY TO LIVE. THE ILLUSION OF GUILT IS NECESSARY FOR
AN ANIMAL THAT CANNOT ENJOY LIFE, IN ORDER TO ORGANISE A LIFE
OF NON-ENJOYMENT.'
How have you been destroyed in your childhood? That has to be looked into. You
were born capable of living -- everybody is -- then your capacity to live was taken
away. And the way, the trick, that was used to take it away was to give you false
ideals, pseudo ideals; to move you in directions which are futile, meaningless; to put
you on tracks which go nowhere, which always end in a cul-de-sac. And naturally
when you are in a cul-de sac and your life is not going anywhere -- or running in
circles -- an explanation is needed. 'Why has this happened to me? Why has this
happened to ME and not to others?'
That too is in the mind of everybody -- 'Everybody else is happy, only I am miserable'
-- because you look only at the faces. And people manage their faces. They have
masks. They don't want to show their misery -- what is the point? They keep it hidden.
So when you look around you may see that everybody seems to be happy -- only you
are miserable. And that's how everybody is thinking -- 'Everybody else seems to be
happy, only I am miserable.' All are miserable.
Misery is there because the society has distracted you. It is not that man is born with
an incapacity to live, no, that is not the problem. That's why I don't agree. The
problem is not that man has no capacity for joy -- man has -- the problem is that man
is not allowed to grow in a natural way.
There are vested interests which don't allow man to go into joyous ways. They need a
miserable man. For their own purposes the miserable man is more suitable than a
happy man, because a happy man is a rebel and a miserable man is never a rebel. A
miserable man is always ready to obey, always ready to submit. A miserable man is so
miserable that he cannot stand on his own; he knows that on his own he is just
miserable. So he is ready to fall into anybody's trap.
Any politician can become the leader if people are miserable. Then any stupid person
can become your leader, your prime minister, your president -- because he can
promise you things, he can promise you great things. And you are so miserable that
you trust the promises. If you are happy, nobody can deceive you by promising -because you need not have any promise, you are already happy. With a happy world
politicians will disappear.
When you are unhappy you start thinking, 'Maybe this life is wasted, maybe I could
not manage this life, but if I can manage the next one, the coming one, that is more
than enough to ask.' You go to the priest. The priest promises you good in the other
life. The politician promises something good in the future in this life, and the priest
promises you something good in the other life beyond death. Both go on promising.
Promises are needed by miserable people. If you are happy, you will not go to the
politician and you will not go to the priest. For what? You are already happy, you are
already in paradise. Then the whole profession of the priest and the politician
disappears.
These are the exploiters. These are the people who are sitting on your heart and
blocking your energies. They can remain in power only if you are miserable.
Remember it. By being miserable you are helping a gang of exploiters. Be happy and
you bring the greatest revolution in the world.
Sometimes people come to me and they ask, 'Why don't you teach something so that
the society can be changed?' That's what I am doing -- but I am doing it very
fundamentally. I don't teach you any social revolution. I don't say to you, 'Go and
overthrow this government.' That is meaningless because those who will overthrow
the government will become your exploiters. It never changes anything. Down the
ages man has been changing the government and the social structure and the
economic structure but basically nothing ever changes. Again and again the same
thing happens. Man is caught. All hopes are hopeless.
But I am doing something really revolutionary. radical -- I am trying to make you
happy. It may not be very obvious to you how it is concerned with the revolution of
the society -- it is. A happy person is beyond being oppressed, exploited, because a
happy person needs no promises. A happy person is already happy so he is not
worried about paradise or after-life. That is all nonsense A happy person is not
worried about tomorrow; the morrow takes care of itself. Jesus says: Look at the lilies
in the field They don't think of the morrow, they don't toil, they don't labour. They live
an unworried existence. They are just there. But I say unto you that even Solomon
attired in all his beautiful, valuable dresses was not so beautiful as these lily-flowers.
That's what sannyas is all about. I would like you to become a lily, a flower,
unconcerned about the future, unconcerned about the past. The past is no more and
the future is not yet. Only the present is there. Bloom in it, be happy in it, rejoice in it,
celebrate in it, and you bring a great revolution in the world -- because you will be
getting out of all the traps of the priests and the politicians.
The priests and politicians create guilt in you. They do the harm and then they make
you feel guilty. They destroy your capacity to live, to love, to delight, and then they
throw the responsibility on you -- 'It is your sin, it is your wrong-doing that has made
you so miserable.' Then they create guilt.
But the basic problem is conditioning. Man should be helped to live a natural life,
man should not be conditioned to live an unnatural life. The basic problem is not an
incapacity to live -- you are born with the capacity to live -- the basic problem is how
not to allow others to destroy that capacity. Once they destroy, they bring guilt in also.
Guilt is their protection. They protect themselves behind the garb of guilt. First they
kill you and then they make you guilty that you have committed suicide.
The seventh question:
Question 8
WHY DO I ALWAYS ACT OUT OF FEAR?
It is the same thing. Fear has been put very deep down into you. You have been made
afraid, you have been frightened, you have been put into a very, very fearful state of
consciousness.
The child is born helpless but the child is not fearful, remember. He is helpless but not
fearful. The child can go and play with a snake and the child can go and try to ride on
a lion. The child is not fearful. The child is helpless, that is true. He is delicate,
vulnerable. He needs your help to grow. But you exploit his helplessness; you start
changing the colour of his helplessness you make it, you turn it into fearfulness; you
reduce it to fearfulness. And it is very easy to change helplessness into fearfulness.
Because the child is helpless you can always make him feel fear. You can say to him,
'We are not going to give you food today,' or 'We are going to lock you in the
bathroom,' or 'We will give you a good beating if you do this.' Or the mother can say,
'I am going to leave,' or 'I am going to renounce you.' Or the father can say, 'I will
never come home if you do this again.' You can make the child very afraid. He is so
helpless he cannot live without you. He does not even know how to survive without
you. And it is not possible for him to survive without you.
Because of this you can exploit him, you can make him afraid. When he is afraid you
are powerful. When he is afraid, you know his buttons. Then you can manage
whatsoever you want him to do and whatsoever you don't want him to do. Then you
can force your ideas, yoUr religions, your ideologies, your patterns, on him. You have
been miserable and you know that you have been miserable; now you will be forcing
the same thing on him and you will make him miserable. If you really love your child
there is one thing you will never do -- you will never make him like you. But every
father and every mother always wants the child to be just like him. People feel very
happy.
Once a child was born. The father was my colleague in the university. He invited me
to see the child. He was thrilled. And on the way to his home he said, 'Somebody has
said that the child looks like me and many people are saying that the child looks
exactly like me.'
When I went to see I told the father, 'He looks like you but please remember not to
make him like you.' He said, 'What are you saying? What else can I do? My child has
to be like me.'
Now this father is on an ego trip -- as all fathers are. Why does the child have to be
like you? Maybe the face looks like you, that is okay. The face does not matter. What
matters is his spirit. He has his own spirit. If you try to make it like you it will be a
good ego trip for you. People try to be immortal in this way. They will die but their
child will live -- and he will be just like them, just as fucked-up as they are, just as
miserable as they are, just as neurotic as they are.
I told the father, 'As far as I know, you have been coming to me many times, for many
years, and you have been coming to me because you are miserable. And you want this
small child to be just like you? Then he will be miserable. If you really love the child
then make a decision, an absolute decision and commitment, that you will avoid one
thing -- that is that the child should be like you. He can be anybody else -- in being
somebody else there is some chance of being happy -- but at least one thing is certain:
if he is like you he will be as miserable as you are.
But that's what goes on. You ask me: WHY DO I ALWAYS ACT OUT OF FEAR?
Because you are still not free of your parents. All fear is from your parents. You may
have grown in age but you have not grown in consciousness. Drop your parents.
And I am not saying anything against your parents. I have all compassion for them.
Their parents have done the same thing to them. They have suffered a lot. I am not
saying be angry with them, I am saying just get rid of them. Drop the conditioning
that they have unknowingly put into you. Be free of them, and then you will also have
a great compassion and love for them. You will feel sorry for them.
This new collection box has some new features. When you drop in a quarter or more
it doesn't make a sound. Drop in a dime and it tinkles a bell. A nickel blows a whistle
and a penny fires a shot, arid when you don't drop anything in, the box takes your
picture.
Now that's how religion creates fear in you.
I have heard....
A minister went hunting up in the mountains. Suddenly a big bear went for him. He
took off so fast you could play checkers on his coat tail, but he couldn't find any place
to hide.
Suddenly he saw a tree -- but the lowest limb was twenty feet from the ground. He
made a frantic leap for it, but missed it. However, he grabbed it on the way down.
You are full of fear. You are just fear and trembling and nothing else. And everybody
else lives on your fear. So nobody is going to help you to drop it because everybody
lives on it.
Your wife will not help you to drop it because she lives on it. Wives make their
husbands very afraid. Your husband will not help you to drop it, because once you
drop fear you may drop the husband himself. It may be just because of fear that you
go on staying with this ugly man. Your children will not like you to drop fear. Because
you are afraid, your children have some power over you. Your parents will not like
you to drop fear. Nobody will like you to drop fear. You have to decide to drop it -because it is against you and in favour of all. It is destructive for you and a good
opportunity for everybody to exploit you.
And the last question:
Question 9
BELOVED OSHO, I AM SUFFERING FROM WRITER'S BLOCK! I WONDER,
HOW IS IT THAT LATELY, AS I FEEL MORE AND MORE OVERWHELMING
GRATITUDE AND LOVE, I BECOME LESS AND LESS ABLE TO EXPRESS IT?
IT PAINS ME THAT I CANNOT SHARE WHAT I AM EXPERIENCING. YOUR
LOVE-SICK BARD, MANEESHA.
It happens, Maneesha. The more you feel for me, the more you will feel incapable of
expressing it.
Superficial feelings can be expressed easily; words are adequate for them. Deeper
feelings cannot be expressed adequately words are not adequate for them. Words are
too superficial. When the feeling goes very deep, it goes beyond words. You can feel
it, you can be thrilled by it, you can feel the pulsation all over your body and being,
but you cannot put it into words. You can try and you can feel that you have failed.
When you put it into words something very tiny comes up -- and it was so huge when
you were experiencing it, so enormous. It was so overwhelming. Now you put it in a
word and it is just a drop -- and it was an ocean when you were feeling it.
I can understand Maneesha's problem. She is my bard and the deeper she goes into me
and into herself, the more and more difficult it will be for her, the more and more
incapable she will feel: But that's a good sign. That's a sign that something really
tremendous is happening.
Go on trying to express -- because even if it cannot be expressed, it has to be
expressed. Even if you cannot put the ocean of your heart into the words, don't be
worried. If even only a few drops get into them, that's good -- because even those few
drops will lead people towards me, even those few drops will give them a taste, a taste
of the ocean.
And remember one thing, even a single drop of the ocean is as salty as the whole
ocean. And even a single drop of the ocean is as much water as the whole ocean. It
may be small but it has the same flavour. It may be very small but it has the same
secret. If you can understand a single drop of water you have understood all the water
that exists on the earth or other planets. Even if water exists on some unknown planet,
it will be H20. We don't know, but if water exists on some unknown planet, it will be
H20 and nothing else. We know the secret. A single drop of water has the secret.
So don't be worried. The song is going to become and more difficult. The deeper you
go. the more you will feel dumb. The deeper you go, the more you will feel that
silence is needed, the more you will want to sing the song in silence. But silence will
not be understood by people. And Maneesha is my bard so she cannot be allowed.
So let the writer's block be there. I will go on hammering on it and destroying it. And
you go on singing your song.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #9
Chapter title: The Touch of the Master
4 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709040
ShortTitle:
SUFIS209
Audio:
Yes
Video:
No
Length: 105 mins
THERE WAS ONCE A SUFI WHO WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT HIS
DISCIPLES WOULD, AFTER HIS DEATH, FIND THE RIGHT TEACHER OF
THE WAY FOR THEM.
HE THEREFORE, AFTER THE OBLIGATORY BEQUESTS LAID DOWN BY
LAW, LEFT HIS DISCIPLES SEVENTEEN CAMELS, WITH THIS ORDER:
'YOU WILL DIVIDE THE CAMELS AMONG THE THREE OF YOU IN THE
FOLLOWING PROPORTIONS: THE OLDEST SHALL HAVE HALF, THE
MIDDLE IN AGE ONE-THIRD, AND THE YOUNGEST SHALL HAVE
ONE-NINTH.'
AS SOON AS HE WAS DEAD AND THE WILL WAS READ, THE DISCIPLES
WERE AT FIRST AMAZED AT SUCH AN INEFFICIENT DISPOSITION OF
THEIR MASTER'S ASSETS. SOME SAID, 'LET US OWN THE CAMELS
COMMUNALLY.' OTHERS SOUGHT ADVICE AND THEN SAID, 'WE HAVE
BEEN TOLD TO MAKE THE NEAREST POSSIBLE DIVISION.' OTHERS WERE
TOLD BY A JUDGE TO SELL THE CAMELS AND DIVIDE THE MONEY; AND
YET OTHERS HELD THAT THE WILL WAS NULL AND VOID BECAUSE ITS
PROVISIONS COULD NOT BE EXECUTED.
THEN THEY FELL TO THINKING THAT THERE MIGHT BE SOME HIDDEN
WISDOM IN THE MASTER'S BEQUEST, SO THEY MADE ENQUIRIES AS TO
WHO COULD SOLVE INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS.
EVERYONE THEY TRIED FAILED, UNTIL THEY ARRIVED AT THE DOOR OF
THE SON-IN-LAW OF THE PROPHET, HAZRAT ALI.
HE SAID, 'THIS IS YOUR SOLUTION. I WILL ADD ONE CAMEL TO THE
NUMBER. OUT OF THE EIGHTEEN CAMELS YOU WILL GIVE HALF -- NINE
CAMELS -- TO THE OLDEST DISCIPLE. THE SECOND SHALL HAVE A THIRD
OF THE TOTAL, WHICH IS SIX CAMELS. THE LAST DISCIPLE MAY HAVE
ONE-NINTH, WHICH CAMEL -- IS LEFT OVER TO BE RETURNED TO ME.
THIS WAS HOW THE DISCIPLES FOUND THE TEACHER FOR THEM.
SUFISM depends absolutely on the concept of the Master. Without the Master there is
no Sufism. Sufism does not believe in the books, it believes in the living Master. One
has to come to somebody who has come to know by himself. The books may contain
great wisdom, but there is no way to decode it. If you decode it, you will decode it
according to your mind. That will falsify the book.
Islam is known as the religion of the book -- the Koran. Hinduism is also known as
the religion of the book -- the Veda. And so is the case with Christianity. The word
'bible' simply means the book.
But Sufism insists that the book cannot help you. No hook can help you. Sufis of
course have a book which they call The BOOK OF THE Books, hut it is empty.
Nothing is written in it -- not even a single word. That is their attitude about books -that although many things will be there, for you it will remain empty, because you can
read only that which you know.
Just the other day I heard somebody ask Mulla Nasruddin, 'Why did Jesus say
"Blessed are the poor in spirit"?'
Mulla thought for a while and then said, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit for they have
no money to buy booze.'
Another time somebody asked Mulla Nasruddin, 'And what is the eleventh
commandment?'
He said, 'Thou shalt not get caught.'
Your mind will become your master when you are reading a book, and the mind is the
problem. This mind can continue perfectly well with a book. The book is dead. The
mind has to interpret, comment, decide what the meaning is. So when you are reading
a book, you are reading your own mind in an indirect way. The book goes on
throwing you back to yourself.
You may become very learned but you will never become a man who really knows.
You will know many things about God but you will never know God. And you will
know many things about truth but you will never know truth. And to know ABOUT IS
just meaningless. To know is the thing, not to know ABOUT. To know about means
you have missed. But the books can give you a very, very strong feeling that you
know; without knowing at all you can have the feeling that you know -- and that will
become your greatest barrier to knowing. That will become a China Wall around you;
your bridges will be broken. How to bridge? How to connect7 How to attain to this
connection with the divine?
The divine seems so far away; the divine seems almost impossible. The God is not
obvious; the God is not close by. You look all around and the existence seems to be
almost empty of God. That's what Martin Heidegger says -- 'I have not found a single
thing in the world which I can call sacred.'
From the ordinary standpoint he is right. Where can you find the sacred? The sacred is
missing -- not because the sacred is not there, but because you don't know how to feel
the sacred. You have not yet evolved that intuitive capacity that can feel the sacred.
God is far away; the world is very close by. Matter is all around and you never come
across the spirit. Hence religion remains just a theory, it neVer becomes an
experience.
Sufism believes that you can approach God only through a Master.
A Master is one who can become a via media, who will bee just between you and the
divine -- a door through whom you can have a glimpse. He knows -- not as
knowledge but as experience. His experience has transformed him, transfigured him,
transported him to another world. A- Master lives in two realities together, a Master is
a paradox. One of his feet is in the world, his other foot is in God. From one side he is
just like you and from another side he is just the opposite of you. A Master is a
paradox. Through the paradox of the Master you will be able to reach the divine; there
is no other way.
So the first step for a seeker is to fall in love with a Master, to seek a Master. If you
can find a Master, half the journey is over. In fact, the most arduous part is over. To
find the Master is the basic requirement of becoming a Sufi. Sufi seekers travel tor
thousands of miles in search of a Master, in search of the man with whom they can
feel in tune, with whom they can vibrate into the unknown, with whom they can take
the first step beyond the known.
So the first thing, the first and the most important thing, is to find a Master. Sufis say
that the greatest blessing of life is to be with a Master. If you are not with a Master,
you have missed the whole opportunity. Then you live with the non-essential; then
you never come in contact with the essential. And the only way to come in contact
with the essential is to be connected with someone who is in contact.
It is almost like.... Have you seen somebody in a circus or in a carnival, or in an
exhibition sitting on an electric chair? The chair looks ordinary. You can't see that the
chair is an electric chair, vibrating with electricity. And you can't see -- because it is
not visible to the eyes -- that the man's whole body is electrified. But if you touch the
man, you get a shock. The man who is sitting on the electric chair is electrified. You
cannot see, but if you touch you are immediately connected with electricity.
So is the case with a Master. He's electrified by the divine. It may not be visible to
those who are just spectators; it may become an experience only for those who come
close and touch.
Once you have touched a Master or the Master has touched you, something that has
never been in your consciousness has happened. And from that knowing there is no
way to fall back. I t is irreversible. And once you have felt it, then you know it is. And
then you can see the same flame in the trees and in the rivers and in the people.
Maybe it is not so clear, maybe it is clouded, hidden behind smoke, asleep, but it is
the same whether asleep or awake, hidden behind a cloud of smoke or burning
brightly with no smoke. It is the same flame. Once you have touched a Master or you
have been touched by a Master...
Michelangelo painted the Day of Creation in the Sistine Chapel. He changed the
whole story, the biblical story. And even the people who were making the Sistine
Chapel, who were financing it, and the pope -- even they could not detect that he had
done something utterly new, something which is not in the Bible.
The Bible says that God created Adam. He created Adam with mud, humus -- hence
the word 'human'. And then God breathed into the nostrils of Adam -- he breathed life.
Now Michelangelo must have thought -- I was looking in his diaries, there are many
references. -- he must have thought for many days, 'To paint this will look a little
awkward. God breathing into the nostrils of Adam? It will look a little awkward to
paint it.' So he changed it. He painted one of his most famous paintings: God touching
Adam, not breathing. There is just God's finger there from the unknown. God is high
in the heaven, in the clouds; Adam is on the earth. A finger just comes and touches
Adam. and that touch makes him alive.
Nobody thought that he had changed the whole story. It is not so in the Bible -- not by
touch but by breathing into him was Adam made alive. But Michelangelo was a
student of Sufism. He was deeply interested in Sufism, and he must have come across
the idea of the touch of the Master -- that the disciple becomes alive by the touch of
the Master.
Yes, it is a touch. It is the jump of a flame from one lamp to another lamp. Once you
have felt it -- and it is a feeling, there is no way of describing it -- once you have felt it,
you have become aware of the sacred. Then it is all over, then only it is.
So Sufis say that the greatest blessing of life is to find a Master -- one who knows,
one who sees, one who is. You ARE only when you are in God -- before that you are
just empty, before that you are a house without a Master, before that you are just a
dwelling where nobody dwells, before that you only think that you are, but you are
not. You are very momentary, you are bubble-like. You don't have any integrity, you
don't have any centre, you don't have any soul.
Gurdjieff, who was immensely impressed by Sufi ideas, who was, in fact, a Sufi
Master, introduced a very new concept into the Western mind. In fact, nobody had
talked about it in that way before. Gurdjieff introduced the idea that you have no soul.
The soul has to be created. Don't remain placid, smug, and don't remain confident that
you have a soul. All the great religions have told you that you have a soul, that it is
already there -- but Gurdjieff introduced a very new insight. He said that the soul is
not there; there is only a possibility of it. You can have it, but you may miss it. There
is no certainty about it. You have to create it. Yes, if you want, you can create it, but
don't take it for granted. Don't think that it is already there inside you.
This is a Sufi insight. Sufis say that only the Master is. You are not. One who has seen
God exists for the first time. You exist only when you confront God. You exist only
when God looks into your eyes and you look into his eyes. You exist only when you
are touched by God and you touch God. Before that, your existence was just an
emptiness, a dark night of the soul. It was just a stumbling, a hoping, a waiting. It was
very insubstantial; it was dreamstuff. It had no reality in it.
A Master is one who is REALLY there. He has presence. He has a kind of radiance.
And you can find it and you can observe it. Sometimes just sit near a hotel or by the
side of the road and watch people passing by. Start looking for one thing: can you
make a distinction? Most people walk like empty shells -- and they are many, they are
the majority -- but sometimes you come across a person who has a kind of presence.
You can observe that he is surrounded by an aura, you can feel that he has magnetism.
You may have unknowingly observed sometimes that while you were sitting with a
few friends, another person comes and suddenly the whole company becomes alive -as if the coming of this new man infuses you with life. Just a moment before, all was
dull, you were sad, you were just dragging, talking -- talking rubbish. One has to talk.
You were passing time. Then a man or a woman enters and suddenly there is a
radiance; everything flares up, everything heightens, everything is turned on. Nobody
is off. A man of presence has entered.
It happens rarely, because men of presence are rare. It is very rare to find two men of
presence in one company, it is very rare. But whenever a man of presence is there, it is
loud and clear. If you are even a little bit alert you can see the quality. The empty man
exhausts you. If you are sitting by the side of the empty man, he is a parasite. His
emptiness pulls your energy into himself, and there it disappears. He is like a black
hole.
Physicists say there are black holes in space. If anything comes into the area of the
black hole it will be simply sucked in and it will disappear out of existence. A black
hole is a star which has collapsed, collapsed into itself. And a star is a big thing. This
earth is very small. The sun is sixty thousand times bigger than the earth and our sun
is a very, very mediocre star. There are suns -- stars -- which are a million times bigger.
When a star collapses, dies -- everything has to die, whatsoever is born has to die -when a star dies, it collapses into itself towards its centre. It has great gravitation.
Because of the gravitation everything is sucked in. It creates a great negative
atmosphere around itself and whatsoever comes close by will be sucked in.
Einstein has said that even sunlight, even sunrays coming closer, will not be able to
get back. Now ordinarily it is very difficult to keep the sunlight caught; it will be
reflected. But from a black hole it will not be reflected, it will simply be caught and
will disappear. Anything that comes too close to the black hole will simply go out of
existence.
A man who is empty is a small black hole. That's why you sometimes feel very tired
by meeting a certain person. You avoid him. Even to say hello to him on the road is
tiring. Just by passing him he takes something of you, a lump of energy disappears.
You are poorer by just saying hello to that man or seeing that man. He is an empty,
negative space. Whosoever comes by, he sucks. These people are tiring people,
exhausting people, parasitical.
Just the opposite is the case when a man has presence. When a man has presence he is
showering energy. He has too much energy. He is overflowing with energy. Whenever
you come close to such a man you are blessed. Suddenly you feel the shower. You are
close by a waterfall. You feel cool, you feel tranquil, you feel vital. You feel a kind of
power and also a kind of poetry arising in you -- all together. You would like to be
with this man again and again. Just to be in the vicinity of this man is life-enhancing.
The man of presence spreads his energy all around. He is reaching people and he has
something to give. He is a giver. He is an emperor. That's why in the East we have
called sannyasins 'swami'. 'Swami' means a Master -- one who has something to give,
one who is not a beggar.
A person who is empty, who has no soul yet, is a beggar. He is constantly begging, he
is a begging bowl. He will take something from you. If you go into a crowd, and you
have any understanding about your life and the way energy functions, you will always
feel that you come home a little less than you went. A chunk of your being has been
taken by the crowd. The crowd is always tiring, exhausting, because in crowds you
will not find a man of presence; you will find only people who are absent, only people
who ate sleepy, only people who are empty.
The Master is a man of presence. He has utter authenticity, a substantial being, he has
soul. This soul has to be created -- you are just a dwelling. You have to provoke the
guest to come, you have to invite the guest to come. The house is ready but the guest
has not come yet.
Sufis say, 'How are you going to learn the ways of being present unless you are in the
presence of a man who is present?' That's what a Master is. A Master is not a teacher;
a Master is a magnetic force, a magnetic field of positive energy, of presence.
Sufis say that whenever you come to the Master you have BARAKA, YOU have
grace. That is the meaning of the Hindu SATSANGA -- being in the presence of the
Master to receive his grace. He is giving, and you are not obliged when you receive
his grace, because even if you had not been there he would have given. Even if
nobody had been there he would have given -- that is just natural. As rivers flow, as a
flower opens and the fragrance is released, so is it the natural thing with a Master. He
has bloomed and the fragrances are released to the winds. Whether somebody will
receive them or not, that is not the point. If somebody can receive them, he will be
blessed; if nobody receives them, then too the Master will go on showering. He does
not shower especially for you -- he cannot help it, he has to shower. Just as light goes
on showering from a lamp, and fragrance from a flower, so is the case with a Master.
Sufis are right. They say that a Master is one who knows, one who sees, one who is.
That has to be remembered: one who is. To come into the presence of one who is, is
the first step on the path. Before that, all is futile; before that, all is frustrating. The
fulfilment starts only when you have become connected with one who is fulfilled. And
this relationship between a Master and a disciple is a love affair; it is not a rational
thing. It is more of feeling than of thinking.
So those who think too much may go on missing. Only those who feel can connect.
Remember, this shift has to happen: from thinking you have to go to feeling. Feeling
is closer, closer to something in you that is called intuition. Thinking is the farthest
point from intuition. Thinking is a kind of tuition. You have been taught by others -that is tuition. Something that has not been taught to you and blooms in you, that is
intuition. Nobody has taught you -- no school, no university, no college. Nobody has
said anything about it to you. It explodes in you -- that is intuition. You need not go
anywhere, you only need to go inside yourself. Feeling is closer to intuition.
I don't expect the impossible. I don't say just be intuitive -- that you cannot do. Just
now if you can do one thing -- move from thinking to feeling -- it will be enough.
Then from feeling to intuition it is very easy. But to move from thinking to intuition is
very difficult. They don't meet, they are polarities. Feeling is just in the middle. From
feeling, thinking and intuition are at the same distance. If you go this way you reach
thinking; if you go that way you reach intuition.
In feeling both meet and merge. Something of thinking remains in feeling and
something of intuition too. Then you can choose.
To find a Master means to have a change in your mind -- you have to become more
feeling. If you go to a Master with all kinds of thoughts, those thoughts will not allow
you to be there. The thoughts will not function as bridges, they will function as walls.
People are so alone because they don't create bridges, they create walls -- and then
they suffer. And the walls are created by you. When you are searching for a Master,
remember that you have to change from thinking to feeling. When you come to a man
whom you can feel as a presence.... Even if you are very caught up in your thinking,
the presence will be felt. It is such a vital thing that you will feel it -- but then you
have to allow it and you have to slip more and more into the feeling space so you can
be more and more in contact with the presence that is there. Once the contact starts
happening, then it takes you on the greatest journey of your life, the greatest
adventure, the greatest ecstasy.
The first step, Sufis say, is to come into the presence of one who is present. Before
that, all is frustration; before that, there is no life. Only after that is there life. Life
starts only when you are connected with a Master. Before that, it was only a dream, a
mirage. Before that, it was only thoughts and thoughts and thoughts, a desert land.
Only feelings bloom; thoughts never bloom. Thoughts are very unproductive,
uncreative, because they are borrowed. They are never original. Not a single reality
can be created by thought; not a single reality can be discovered by thought. Thought
is very impotent. All that is known is known by feeling; all that is discovered is
discovered by feeling; all that is created is created by feeling.
The second step is surrender... and then there are no more steps. The whole path is
covered in just two simple steps: one is coming in contact with someone who is in
contact with God, and the second is to surrender to him. Sufis say that two simple
steps are enough. In two steps the journey of millions of miles is finished. The first is
the most arduous. Once you have come into the presence, by and by you will start
surrendering. You cannot resist long. The real thing is to come in contact.
Sometimes it happens that you don't come in contact, and you surrender. Then your
surrender is false, then your surrender is from the mind, then your surrender is just
pseudo. Then you are pretending that you have surrendered. but you have not
surrendered. It is just a strategy -- you want to exploit the man of presence. There is
no way to exploit him. You want to gain something. You think, 'Okay, if surrender is
the condition, I will surrender.' But your surrender cannot be surrender. Surrender has
to happen, you cannot do it, you cannot will it. It you will it, you can take it back. If
you do it, you can undo it. Surrender is a happening.
So go step by step. And there are only two steps. First be suffused with the presence
of a Master, be drunk -- and then a surrender comes on its own. You start feeling that
you are bowing down. Don't be in a hurry. Sometimes it happens that you do things in
a hurry -- in this age particularly, hurry is one of the problems. Everybody is in a
hurry, wants to do everything fast and soon. So if you come to a Master and you hear
that surrender is needed, you are ready to surrender. You say, 'Why not? Let us see. If
something happens, good; if nothing happens, there is nothing to lose.' But this
surrender won't help. This is not the surrender Sufis are talking about, that's why they
say it is the second step, not the first. The first is to be in the presence of the Master.
There is a sannyasin, Praghosh, who goes on writing to me again and again -- 'Why,
Osho? You look very ordinary to me.' I have not answered him yet but now the right
moment has come to answer. I don't LOOK ordinary, I AM ordinary. But what is his
problem? I'm not worried by my ordinariness, I'm immensely happy with it. So why is
Praghosh in trouble? His trouble is that he wants me to be very, very extraordinary --
a man of miracles or something. Some nonsense is in his mind. He wants me to be
stupid -- to produce ash or Swiss watches or do some miracles. He is in search of a
magician, not of a Master.
This search is of the ego. He wants me to be very extra-ordinary so that his ego can
feel very good that it has surrendered to an extraordinary man. If by my touch I cure
people, if by my touch I make dead people alive, then Praghosh will be very happy:
this is the man to surrender to. But then you will not be surrendering to me. It will be
your ego-trip. You will feel very good and satisfied that you are the disciple of such an
extraordinary man.
Sufis don't believe in miracles. They think they are stupid and only stupid people are
attracted towards miracles. A Master is ordinary. A Master is a normal man -- a regular.
A Master is so ordinary that he has no kind of ego in him. All extra-ordinariness is a
kind of ego. A Master is simply nobody. His ordinariness is a nobodiness. Only people
who suffer from infer-iority seek extraordinariness. If one has come home there is no
search for extraordinariness, there is no search for speciality. To be ordinary is so
extraordinarily beautiful.
But I can understand his trouble. He wants to have an ego trip through me. So he is
disturbed -- Osho is not doing any kind of miracles. He is a sannyasin, but what kind
of surrender is this? This is not surrender. He has not even come into my presence yet,
he has not yet got what I call that 'connectivity'. He has not been touched by me and
he has not touched me yet. And he is a sannyasin. He must have been in a hurry. He
should have waited a little.
Just the other day his woman came -- Urmi, his woman. And she was crying and she
was saying, 'What to do, Osho? Praghosh puts me on such a high pedestal. He almost
thinks of me as if I am a goddess, and then he makes me feel guilty because I am a
human being. He expects me to be a goddess, and if I don't behave like a goddess,
then he makes me feel guilty.' While she was relating her misery and story I was
thinking, 'So he is doing that to you too.' That's what he wants to do with me and to
me. He wants to put me on a high pedestal -- to be a miracle man or something
extraordinary that doesn't happen.
Once he has put me on a high pedestal he will be in control. Then he will be powerful
over me because he will have the control. If he wants to take me off the pedestal -- it
is his pedestal, he can. That's what he is doing to his woman too. First he puts her on a
high pedestal and then he tortures her. He becomes powerful.
How the ego goes on playing tricks! You have to watch. On the surface it looks just
the opposite -- that he is such a humble man, and he puts his woman in such a high
place that she is a goddess. You will think he is very humble. He is not. He is very
tricky; he is being very political. And he may not be consciously doing it; it may be
just his unconscious ego trip. Once you have put the woman up as a goddess, you are
powerful. Then she cannot be human, then you can find faults with her, and then she
will be afraid of you. Afraid, because you can put her down any time. That is what he
wants to do with me too.
First he wants to put me on a high pedestal, then he becomes powerful. Now see the
game. Even the disciple wants to become powerful over the Master. If I am ordinary,
then he is no longer powerful, then he cannot put me anywhere lower than I am. I am
just on plain ground -- where can he put me down to? Then he has no power.
Otherwise he can come and say, 'Osho, you are so high, don't do this, don't say that.'
I have been watching this. For these twenty years I have come in contact with millions
of people and this has been one of my observations -- that everybody wants to control
the Master. People come to me and they say, 'You should not say this because that will
bring your image down. You should not say this.'
An Indian came just a few days ago and he was saying, 'You should not talk about
homosexuality, even if somebody has asked the question. And even if it is not wrong,
you should not say so, otherwise people will think you are in support of
homosexuality.' He was saying that this would tarnish my image.
People have been suggesting all kinds of things to me during these past twenty years:
you should not do this. you should not say this. I used to stay in Jaina families. They
would tell me, 'You should not eat in the night because if you eat in the night and
somebody comes to know, they will wonder what kind of saint you are.' Now if I want
to be on their pedestal 1 have to be hungry!
I stayed in one ashram -- Vinoba's ashram -- and I got up at six. Vinoba got up at three.
So his disciples came to me and they said, 'What are you doing? You should get up at
three, otherwise people in this ashram will wonder what kind of saint you are -because we have become accustomed to seeing the saint get up at three.'
I said, 'Don't think that I am a saint -- I am going to sleep up to six. What you think
about me is of no value. I'm not going to disturb my sleep just to be your saint. Forget
about it.'
'You should not do this, you should hot be that, you should not say that, you should
not comment on this' -- so many advisors. And they all think they love me, and they
all think they are followers, disciples. They are just helping their Master to have a
good public image. And they go on saying, 'We don't say that you are wrong. We are
just saying it because of the public image.'
Now this Praghosh wants to put me on a high pedestal, then he becomes powerful.
then if I want to remain on the high pedestal I have to look to Praghosh. Where is
Praghosh? Otherwise I will not be on that high pedestal. Who will put me that high?
Remember, Praghosh, expecting me to be extraordinary is just your ego. You want to
be a disciple of an extraordinary man, then your ego will feel very, very enhanced,
fulfilled.
I am ordinary, and I am absolutely ordinary. I don't look ordinary -- that is again a
trick. He is asking me 'Why do you look so ordinary?' He is not saying 'You are
ordinary.' He cannot believe that I am ordinary. Maybe I'm just pretending to be
ordinary, then there is some hope for him. Some day or other I will show my
extraordinary miracles. Praghosh, you are hoping against hope. It is not going to
happen. I am simply ordinary. It is not that I am pretending or playing a game of
being ordinary. I am ordinary. And because I am ordinary there is a possibility for you
to surrender. And I'm not going to do anything that can give you any notion that I am
extraordinary, I am not going to do anything. Only then will your surrender be true.
If you can surrender to an ordinary man, the ego will disappear. Sufis have never done
miracles. Sufis have always been very, very ordinary people. That is one of the basics
of Sufism -- because the Master exists to help you surrender and he can help you to
surrender only when he is nobody. If he is somebody then being connected with him
will make you feel somebody. You will feel good that you are no ordinary person -you are connected to an extraordinary person, so you are extraordinary.
Connected to a nobody -- that's what surrender is. And through surrender you will
come to see that the ordinary life is so full of beauty and benediction. These trees are
ordinary and these birds are ordinary and this sky is ordinary and this earth is ordinary,
and God is ordinary. There is no ego, so who bothers to be extraordinary? Existence is
ordinary but this ordinariness is so beautiful; it is a beautitude. And to be ordinary is
to be religious.
Those who are here with me and who are really connected with me will know what I
am talking about. Why this hankering for the extraordinary? There must be some kind
of inferiority complex in Praghosh, so he's seeking some superior being. If he cannot
be superior, at least he can be the follower of a superior being. But it is an urge
coming out of an inferiority complex. In surrender you surrender all -- your inferiority
complex, your superiority complex, your ego, your humbleness -- you surrender all. A
surrender has to be total. You put yourself in a bundle and you throw it at the feet of
the Master and you say, 'I disappear from this moment.' And from that moment there
is no question.
How can there be a question from that moment? Then you don't question the Master.
It is finished. Question before you surrender as much as you want to question, but
once you have surrendered, there is no need. And if the questioning still continues, if
you are still suspicious and doubtful, then the surrender has not happened.
The first step is to come in contact with a Master, and the second is surrender. And
then, Sufis say, the whole journey is complete.
How to find a Master? Not by thought, of course. By thinking, you go on keeping
yourself in the same rut. in the same old rut, in the past. By thinking, you remain old,
you stop all possibilities of being new. And watch, you are constantly thinking, there
is a constant chattering inside -- the internal talk. Even while you are listening to me
-- look in for just a second -- the chattering continues, there is a constant internal talk.
This internal talk divides you from reality. Once this internal talk disappears, even for
a few moments, you are one -- one with reality, one with the Master, one with the
beloved, one with God. Whenever you want to be one with something -- with your
woman, with your man, with your Master, with your God, with the existence -whenever you want to be one with something, in a unison, this internal talk has to
disappear. That is the only barrier.
Without dropping internal talk, you cannot find a Master. The question arises in many
people's minds: 'How to find a Master?' You will have to learn ways to be silent. And
when you come into the presence of somebody who is present, sit silently. Collect
yourself together, calm down, don't think -- because thinking is an activity -- just be.
It will be difficult, but if you try, then for a few moments it will happen. They will be
very, very small moments, just intervals; they come and they go. But even in that
interval, like a flash, something will descend on you. You will be connected,
disconnected, connected, disconnected, but it will happen. And once you have
touched somebody who is, for even a single moment, you will know the taste of it.
Even a drop of it will give you the taste of it. And then all other tastes start
disappearing; then that taste becomes your only taste. Then all desires start
converging into one desire -- how to be with this man and how to be totally with him?
And every day it goes on growing. One day suddenly you find you are surrendered.
Yes, one day you find you are surrendered. It takes you unaware, you were not
planning to surrender -- it has happened.
Internal talk is the way of the old self, is the way to remain hung-up with the past, is
the way to remain in the ego. And you are constantly thinking, day in, day out. It is
always there like an undercurrent. Once it is broken, you fall into the world of
intuition.
Intuition is hiding there just behind this layer of internal talk, so learn how to be
without internal talk. That is the way to find a Master. And it will be easier for you to
learn sitting by the side of the sea, looking at the roaring waves -- when there is
nothing much to think about, and you can just go on looking. Lying down on the grass
looking at the sky, in the night looking at the stars, watching the trees -- there is
nothing much to think about. There is no need to think about stars. They are there, so
beautifully there, you can just be with them.
Learn first to be with nature, because nature is silent. It does not respond, it knows no
language. So you will be able to fall below the level of internal talk. And then start
searching, then start looking for people who have a presence. When you come near a
person who has a presence you will suddenly see that you are infused with energy,
you are vibrating with a new rhythm. A dance has entered you. Each cell and fibre of
your being is pulsating. You are very close to something immense, something
incredible.
It is said of Buddha that on the day he became enlightened he started feeling a few
hours before that that day something immense was just around the comer. It was
driving him crazy. He could not figure out what it was, but something was there
around the comer, something was going to happen. That urgency became very, very
penetrating. At the last moment, just a few hours before he became enlightened.... It
was almost like a pregnant woman. Her nine months are over and any moment it is
going to happen, the child is going to happen. But the pregnant woman knows, she
has a visible symptom -- the child is there kicking inside her belly. But when you are
going to be reborn into Buddhahood, into satori, samadhi, nothing is visible. And
something is kicking in the belly.
Buddha was sitting underneath the tree where he became enlightened and a woman
offered him some sweets in a bowl. He ate the sweets and went to the river to wash
the bowl. And it was coming, it was everywhere, he could feel it. It became so urgent
that he did something which he had never done before. He put the bowl in the river
and he said, to no one in particular, to existence itself, 'If something is going to
happen, give me some indication. Don't drive me crazy.'
Buddha did not believe in any God so he could not address God. He was not talking to
anybody in particular, he was simply talking to existence, or talking to himself. 'Give
me a visible indication. Let this be the indication: if this bowl starts flowing upstream
then I will be satisfied that something is going to happen -- because it is so heavy on
me.' And the story is beautiful. The story says that the bowl started floating upstream.
Within seconds it disappeared upstream. Then Buddha was satisfied. Then he rested
underneath the tree. 'Yes, it is going to happen.' And by the morning it had happened.
This is just a parable. Don't take it literally. Don't think that the bowl really started
floating upstream. It simply says that to be connected with God is as absurd a
phenomenon as a bowl floating upstream. It is against all the so-called laws, against
the law of gravitation. It is against all the so-called laws that we are aware of. It is a
new phenomenon, it is a new law functioning. Things are upside-down. What has
never happened before is going to happen. The consciousness was always empty; now
it is going to be fulfilled. The consciousness was always going outwards; now the
consciousness is going inwards. That is the meaning of the bowl floating upstream.
The consciousness was always going low, downwards; now it is rising high, upwards;
that is the meaning of the bowl floating upstream. A new law penetrates.
To be connected with a Master is the beginning of a new world, a new universe. For
that you will have to sacrifice the old. And to sacrifice the old, nothing else is needed
-- only the internal talk has to be sacrificed. That keeps you a captive in the old reality.
That is the world that has to be dropped, that is the world that has to be renounced.
And that is what surrender is. When you have seen something new which you have
never seen before, when you have felt the presence of a man who IS, who is a man of
God, then this is what is needed: you surrender your internal talk, you bow down.
In the East this has been symbolic -- the disciple puts his head at the feet of the Master.
It is just symbolic, it has nothing to do with your physical head. It is simply symbolic.
The head is the symbol of thinking, of mind. The disciple puts his mind at the
Master's feet and he says, 'Now you take care.' And the Master takes care.
In fact, when you surrender to a Master you have nothing to surrender. Never think
for a single moment that you have done something great. In fact, the Master has been
really compassionate that he accepted you, because now the responsibility will be his.
That is the meaning of this story.
THERE WAS ONCE A SUFI WHO WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT HIS
DISCIPLES WOULD, AFTER HIS DEATH, FIND THE RIGHT TEACHER OF
THE WAY FOR THEM.
Not only while he is alive will he help you, the Master will even make provisions for
when he is gone. He will make arrangements, because those who have trusted in him
should not be left in the middle. This Sufi Master is just on his deathbed. A few
disciples have arrived, a few have reached, but many are still struggling.
Now remember that many disciples of this Master must have arrived. Why couldn't
they function as teachers? To know is one thing, but to help others to know is quite
another. Not every enlightened person is a Master and not every teacher is enlightened.
There are people who are good teachers, great teachers, they can teach beautifully.
They can be very articulate people with an immense capacity to teach or make things
clear, but they may not have known themselves. Then all that they are trying to teach
is borrowed and dead. And there are people who may have known, but are not capable
of teaching -- because teaching has nothing to do with just knowing.
For example, you may have seen a beautiful sunrise, but that does not mean that you
can paint it, that you can come home and paint it for your children and show them that
this was the beautiful morning you have seen. And it is possible that if you describe
that beautiful morning to somebody who has not seen it and who is a painter, he can
paint it without seeing it. And his painting will be better than your painting. Your
painting will be nothing. It will not give any idea of what you have seen or what you
are talking about.
The same is the case with the inner journey. There are teachers who have not heard
but who are articulate people; and there are Masters who have known but who are not
articulate. The rare phenomenon is when a Master is a teacher too, when an
enlightened person is articulate too. He has known it and he has the ability, the art, to
help others know it.
This Sufi was dying. There must have been a few of his disciples who had become
enlightened, but they were not teachers. So he must have been worried -- what is
going to happen to those who are in the middle? The Master must provide. He must
find a way for them to find a Master.
Now Sufis work in very, very strange ways, but they know how to work. The Master
could have said, 'Go to Hazrat Ali' -- Hazrat Ali was the son-in-law of Mohammed.
'Go to Ali,' he could have said. It would have been so easy. But that would not have
been right. He wanted them to find him themselves -- because when you find
something yourself, it has immense value. When somebody says something and you
do it, it is no longer so valuable. Then you are doing your duty.
If when the Master is dying he says, 'When I am dead you go to Hazrat Ali,' you will
follow the old man. You will say, 'We will have to go to Hazrat Ali.' You may like
Hazrat Ali, or you may not like Hazrat Ali -- it will be a kind of obligation, a duty.
Then the whole point will be missed. The Master wants you to seek the new Master.
The Master wants you to grope in the dark, so that when you have found, you have
the feeling that you have found. This is one of the most important things to remember.
Those people who found Mohammed were immensely profited. But now there are
millions of Mohammedans. They have not found Mohammed themselves, their
fathers told them. It has not been their own search. Now they are just so-so, lukewarm
Mohammedans -- as there are lukewarm Christians. The first disciples who had
searched for Jesus and found him were thrilled. They had really found something on
their own. Their whole life was transformed. But now your father says, 'Christ is the
saviour. Christ saves. He is the salvation. You go to Christ.' And he takes you to the
church. You go reluctantly, because nobody likes anybody else's truth. That is a basic
arrangement in life. It is built-in -- that nobody likes anybody else's truth because
anybody else's truth is a lie to you.
So the Master could have said 'Go to Hazrat Ali' -- it would have been easier. Ali was
there in the same place and he was a well known man, one of the rarest followers of
Mohammed; a man of great insight. The Master could have said, 'I am dying, now it
will be difficult for you to walk on the path that you were following with me. You go
to Ali, he will help.' But that would have missed the basic thing: the Master has to be
found. You have to take a risk, you have to search, you have to surrender. It would
have been too secure. From the old man you would have heard and you would have
said, 'Okay. So when you are dead we will go to Ali.' It would have been simple, but
of no help.
So the old Sufi created a device -- a very strange one.
HE THEREFORE, AFTER THE OBLIGATORY BEQUESTS LAID DOWN BY
LAW, LEFT HIS DISCIPLES SEVENTEEN CAMELS, WITH THIS ORDER...
He must have been a wandering dervish with camels. He must have been wandering
all over the country with his disciples. He leaves seventeen camels with the order:
'YOU WILL DIVIDE THE CAMELS AMONG THE THREE OF YOU IN THE
FOLLOWING PROPORTIONS: THE OLDEST SHALL HAVE HALF, THE
MIDDLE IN AGE ONE-THIRD, AND THE YOUNGEST SHALL HAVE
ONE-NINTH.'
Now this is very strange and absurd, illogical -- but Masters are illogical, they are not
much worried about logic. He used it as a device. It was something that could not be
done mathematically.
AS SOON AS HE WAS DEAD AND THE WILL WAS READ, THE DISCIPLES
WERE AT FIRST AMAZED AT SUCH AN INEFFICIENT DISPOSITION OF
THEIR MASTER'S ASSETS.
They were amazed. They must have become a little doubtful, because what kind of
arrangement has he made? Seventeen camels: half to be given -- so one camel will
have to be cut up. Then one third has to be given -- so a few camels will have to be
murdered. How can you divide alive animals in this way? This is so absurd. The idea
must have come to them, 'Had the man gone senile or mad? He was so old, maybe he
had lost all ideas about how to figure things out.' This was so absurd, so blatantly
absurd. Doubt must have arisen; they must have been puzzled. that was the device.
The Master wanted them to be puzzled. Now watch, you will be surprised. You may
not have understood that point.
Before you can choose another Master, the old Master has to be lost -- otherwise how
can you choose a new Master? The old man had made a perfect device. It was so
absurd that they would laugh. They would say, 'This old man was finished, so it is
better that he is dead and we are free. It is good now to search somewhere else. If this
man had been alive we would still have been clinging to him, and he has gone mad.'
The Master condemned himself so that they wouldn't go on hanging on to the past
Master and his memory, so that the past was closed, the chapter was finished. They
could start a new chapter in their lives.
SOME SAID, 'LET US OWN THE CAMELS COMMUNALLY.'
Now logic entered; now they started thinking about what to do. The order cannot be
fulfilled as it was so they would have to find a way. Now interpretations, thinking
entered. The order was simply absurd.
Somebody suggested, 'LET US OWN THE CAMELS COMMUNALLY.' They were
trying to find a way out.
OTHERS SOUGHT ADVICE AND THEN SAID, 'WE HAVE BEEN TOLD TO
MAKE THE NEAREST POSSIBLE DIVISION.'
So somebody, a wise man, a knowledgeable man, must have suggested, 'It is simple.
Make the nearest possible division. Don't be foolish. You are not to cut the camels up,
just the nearest possible, the approximate, will be right.'
But remember, Sufis don't believe in approximate truth. They are very exact people.
They mean what they say and they say what they mean.
First the disciples had thought amongst themselves that it was better to own the
camels communally. That was the closest -- to own them communally. Then they went
to ask somebody. Now things started going farther and farther away from the Master's
intention. Some said,
'MAKE THE NEAREST POSSIBLE DIVISION.' OTHERS WERE TOLD BY A
JUDGE TO SELL THE CAMELS AND DIVIDE THE MONEY...
Now things have become very, very worldly-wise. This is perfectly okay. Why bother?
You can divide the money. Sell the camels.
... AND YET OTHERS HELD THAT THE WILL WAS NULL AND VOID
BECAUSE ITS PROVISIONS COULD NOT BE EXECUTED.
This is the farthest. Some people said, 'It is not possible. Drop the whole idea. The
will is null and void because it cannot be done in the first place.'
Now there are so many interpretations. The disciples started thinking. When a Master
gives you an order, it is not to be thought over; it has to be listened to, it has to be
meditated upon, not contemplated. Otherwise you will miss the message. You have to
meditate over it, you have to keep it in your womb, you have to sleep on it. You have
to keep it there inside you and wait -- just wait, keep it inside. Remember it and wait.
Don't start interpreting. Your interpretations are your interpretations and are going to
be meaningless. And they are not only meaningless, they can be harmful also.
A man jailed for twenty years kept his sanity by befriending an ant that used to share
his cell. He even made a two-storey home for him in a matchbox. To while away the
hours the convict made a tiny guitar, and in five years he taught the ant to sing and
play the guitar. In the long winter evenings the ant was of great consolation, giving
recitals and concerts for his benefactor.
In another five years the convict had taught the ant to dance and by his twelfth year he
was also an accomplished uillean pipe player.
As the day of his release approached, the convict began to realise that he had in his
possession the greatest television performer ever known. He would be rich, famous....
On the day of his release, the ex-convict rushed to the nearest pub to celebrate his
liberty. He ordered a pint and while he drank it he produced the matchbox, shook the
ant onto the counter of the deserted bar and asked for a tune. The ant rose to the
occasion with a lovely rendering of THE HEART BOWED DOWN. He was powerful.
His owner, so overcome with joy, called over the barman and nodded towards the ant.
'What do you think of that?' he said.
Whereupon the barman raised his hand, brought it down on the counter and killed the
ant.
'Sorry about that, sir,' he said, 'it is the hot weather.'
Now the barman had his own interpretation. He did not look at this ant. It must have
been an everyday thing -- somebody, a customer, would call and would say, 'Look at
the ant on the table, and he would kill it and say, 'It is the hot weather.'
Now he has killed one of the most precious ants. That's what happens when you bring
your interpretations in.
The Master left a great device through which the disciples were going to find their
new Master. But the interpretations would kill the ant. all the things that were
suggested to them were against the will. And nobody had even an inkling of an idea
about what the Master really meant.
An old Irish Catholic lady was lying on her deathbed. The priest was called to issue
the last rites. The priest took her hand and said, 'Now Mary, you know where you are
going, don't you?'
'Yes, Father,' she said.
'And you have been good all your life, not sinned, said your prayers every day and
been a pious woman?'
'Ah yes, Father, I have always been a good Catholic,' said Mary.
'Then I have a question to ask you, Mary, before you go to meet St. Peter. Are you
ready to answer, Mary?' said Father Patrick.
'Oh yes. Father. ask me anything.'
'Well Mary, what I want to know is, do you want a white lining to your coffin, or a
purple lining?'
'What is the difference, Father?' said Mary.
'Well,' said the Father, 'if you have really been a good woman, not lusted, committed
adultery, never stolen, envied, been greedy, or used the name of the Lord in vain, and
been a good Catholic, you shall have a white lining to your coffin. But, if you have
been a sinner, lusted, committed adultery, been greedy, vain, envious, stolen or used
the Lord's name in vain and been a bad Catholic, you will have to have a purple lining
to your coffin. Now what I want to know is, what colour will you be wanting in your
coffin?'
Mary closed her eyes, thought for a moment and said, 'Well Father, I would like a
white lining with a little dash of purple here and there.'
Your interpretations are going to be reflections of your mind. Whatsoever you say
reflects you. So when a Master gives you a device, you are not to think about it -otherwise you will miss it. Thinking is the sure way to miss it. You have to meditate
upon it. And meditation does not mean thinking, it simply means keeping it in your
awareness, just keeping it there, not forgetting it -- that's all. Sitting silently, keeping it
there, not forgetting it -- that's all. Not doing anything positive about it, just letting it
be there. And sooner or later something will open inside you and you will have a
vision. And that vision will be the meaning of the device. Your internal talk will have
to disappear to know the meaning. If your internal talk continues...
Not only did the disciples think about it themselves, they went to ask other people.
Now that was foolish. What has a judge to do with it? It is not a legal matter. In fact, it
is not a will. The Master is not concerned with the camels and how they are to be
divided. How can a Master be concerned with such non-essential things?
Then they went to a lawyer. Now how is a lawyer concerned with it? It has nothing to
do with the law. It has nothing to do with this ordinary world. They must have gone to
wise people -- so-called wise people -- wise in the ways of the world: clever, cunning,
calculating. They suggested all these things, but the disciples were fortunate that they
didn't get involved in any interpretation.
THEN THEY FELL TO THINKING THAT THERE MIGHT BE SOME HIDDEN
WISDOM IN THE MASTER'S BEQUEST, SO THEY MADE ENQUIRIES AS TO
WHO COULD SOLVE INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS.
Then they came upon one thing, stumbled upon one thing: that the problem seemed to
be insoluble. Whatever solutions were given didn't seem to be pertinent, adequate. No
solution seemed to fit the situation perfectly. The problem seemed to be insoluble, and
it became more insoluble as they collected advice from people. So now one idea arose
in their consciousness: they should seek somebody who could solve insoluble
problems. That's what Zen people call a koan, an insoluble problem. It can be solved,
but it is not solved by logic and reasoning. It is solved by intuitive energy. It is solved
by silence, not by words, not by figures. It is solved by utter silence. Now they were
coming closer to the point. So they started looking for the man who could solve
insoluble problems.
Now Sufis are known to solve insoluble problems. In fact, all great problems are
insoluble because life is a mystery, it cannot be solved. And Sufis are interested in the
mystery, not in solving it. All religious people, all religious search, is concerned with
the insoluble.
First they went to the magistrate, the lawyer, the mayor, and people like that. Then
they became aware that the problem seemed to be insoluble and no solution seemed to
be adequate. So they thought, 'We must go to somebody who is interested in insoluble
problems, in the mystery of life.'
EVERYONE THEY TRIED FAILED, UNTIL THEY ARRIVED AT THE DOOR OF
THE SON-IN LAW OF THE PROPHET, HAZRAT ALI.
HE SAID, 'THIS IS YOUR SOLUTION. I WILL ADD ONE CAMEL TO THE
NUMBER. OUT OF THE EIGHTEEN CAMELS YOU WILL GIVE HALF -- NINE
CAMELS -- TO THE OLDEST DISCIPLE. THE SECOND SHALL HAVE A THIRD
OF THE TOTAL, WHICH IS SIX CAMELS. THE LAST DISCIPLE MAY HAVE
ONE-NINTH, WHICH IS TWO CAMELS. THAT MAKES SEVENTEEN. ONE -MY CAMEL -- IS LEFT OVER TO BE RETURNED TO ME.'
Now Sufis say that your problems cannot be solved as they are unless the Master adds
something of his being to you. That is the meaning of the whole story.
There are seventeen camels. You are those seventeen camels. there is no way to solve
anything unless you come to a man of compassion who is not only ready to solve your
problem but is ready to be involved with you -- that is the meaning. The story is
tremendously beautiful.
They had gone to many people but nobody had thought that one camel could be added
-- and once the camels are eighteen in number, things become simple, they become
divisible.
The Master is one who is ready to get involved with you. When you surrender to a
Master, he opens all his doors to you, he is available to you, he becomes involved
with you. You are committed to him, he is committed to you. You surrender nothing.
You don't have anything to surrender. You surrender only that which you don't have,
and the Master starts giving you that which he has.
Now these people came with a problem. The problem in itself was insoluble, but
Hazrat Ali solved it. And the device was that he added one of his camels to their
camels. So the first thing to be remembered is that a Master is one who can give his
being to you, who can become associated with you, who can come to you and hold
your hand, who can make your problem his problem, who does not think from the
outside as a spectator, who becomes a participant.
When you come to me with your problems, never think for a single moment that I am
standing there like a wise man, aloof, away, and advising you -- not for a single
moment. I get involved with you, I become you, I stand in your shoes. Your problem
becomes my problem; only then can I be of any help. Unless I become you, I cannot
help you. Unless I become you, I cannot even understand you -- what to say about
help? Unless your problem starts becoming my problem, unless I am surrounded by
your problem, there is no way to solve it. That is the difference between a therapist
and a Master.
A therapist stands outside. He brings his expertise, his knowledge to help you. A
Master? -- he does not bring any expertise, he has none. He does not bring any
knowledge to help you, he has none. He brings his being, he brings his knowing. He
lends you his eyes. He lends you his eyes, not his knowledge. He lends you his vision,
his clarity, his transparency. He becomes you for a moment. Those who have loved
me will understand it. While talking to them I become so involved with their problem
that they are almost an observer. It becomes my problem. And whenever it becomes
the problem of the Master, help arises. That's why the disciple's utter surrender is
needed, so that the Master can come and have a deep meeting with your being.
HE SAID, 'THIS IS YOUR SOLUTION. I WILL ADD ONE CAMEL TO THE
NUMBER. OUT OF THE EIGHTEEN CAMELS YOU WILL GIVE HALF -- NINE
CAMELS -- TO THE OLDEST DISCIPLE. THE SECOND SHALL HAVE A THIRD
OF THE TOTAL, WHICH IS SIX CAMELS. THE LAST DISCIPLE MAY HAVE
ONE-NINTH, WHICH IS TWO CAMELS. THAT MAKES SEVENTEEN.
And then comes the last beautiful thing:
ONE -- MY CAMEL -- IS LEFT OVER TO BE RETURNED TO ME.'
-- because whatsoever the Master gives to you always goes back to him. You are
transformed between the Master's coming to you and his going back. But whatsoever
is given goes back to the Master, because in the very nature of things it cannot be
given. It can be only loaned, at the most. It is his being. How can he give it to you?
The being cannot be given, he can only loan it to you for a moment. But even in that
single moment, things become clear, and then whatsoever is the Master's, goes back to
him.
This is one of the most beautiful parables sufis have invented. First the Master gives
to the disciple, then the disciple's problems are solved, then whatsoever is given
comes back to the Master. The Master gives you his being, transforms you through it,
you become luminous, and he does not lose anything -- because whatsoever is his
comes back to him. That" why the Master can go on giving to millions and nothing is
lost.
Many times there are questions from you, 'Osho, now you have so many disciples, so
many sannyasins, in the thousands. It will be difficult for you to help us.' Not at all,
because it is not something that can be divided. I can give my vision to as many
people as are ready to take it and receive it, and yet it remains intact. It always comes
back to me. You cannot take it away. Numbers don't matter. One or one million, it
makes no difference. Remember this. Only one who is ready to get involved with you
can solve your life problems. Outsiders cannot solve them. The Master has to become
your inside.
And remember that when you have arrived home -- sooner or later -- and your light is
lit and your flame is burning bright, don't be a miser. Remember, you will not be
losing anything. You can go on giving to as many people as you want and you will not
lose anything. It is not possible to lose. That which is yours you cannot lose, only that
which is not yours can be lost. Money can be lost, stolen, divided. Naturally, if a
father has four sons then four sons will divide the money. If he has sixteen then
sixteen will divide the money. And the more sons he has, the poorer the sons will be.
But not so with a Master. A Master can have a million disciples or ten million
disciples. It does not make any difference. It does not make the disciples poor,
remember -- because the Master can go on giving to everybody, nothing is lost. So
when you become Masters in your own right -- you will become Masters one day -then don't be misers. Share it! The more you share the more you become beloved by
God.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #10
Chapter title: Out of the Mud and the Mire
5 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709050
ShortTitle:
SUFIS210
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 98 mins
The first question:
Question 1
AS A U. S. PSYCHIATRIST I AM WELL-TRAINED. EXPERIENCED AND HAVE
BEEN SUCCESSFUL BY OUTER STANDARDS -- BUT NOW, WHAT TO DO? I
NO LONGER FEEL THAT I AM A DOCTOR OR THERAPIST OR ANALYST,
ONLY A PERSON, AND PERHAPS A TEACHER. YOU AND OTHERS LIKE YOU
ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS. NOW I AM ONLY LISTENING TO THE INNER
VOICE FOR DIRECTION. IS THERE ANY MORE I CAN DO?
First, there is no success as far as the outer is concerned. All success is just an effort to
cover failure. There is only one success, there are not many successes -- and that one
success is to know oneself, to be oneself.
I understand what you mean by being successful by outer standards. Man has created
outer standards of success to deceive himself. You can have money, you can have a
name, you can have prestige, but if you are not, what does it matter? You can have the
whole world but if you are not, what does it matter?
In fact, man tries to possess things because he does not possess himself. This is a
strategy to hide the fact that he does not possess himself. This is a strategy to hide the
fact that he does not possess himself; this is a way of explaining away the inner
emptiness; this is a way to feel, 'Look, I have so many things, what else does one
need?' When you are surrounded by too many things -- what you call 'success by outer
standards' -- what exactly are you doing? You are trying to create a substitute of
'having' for an emptiness which you are feeling inside. Being is missing, and you are
trying to replace it by having. And it cannot be replaced by any having.
This is the whole struggle of human mind. These are the two directions: having and
being. In the West you have worked very hard to have more; in the East we have
worked hard to be more. Yes, sometimes it happens that even a beggar may have more
being than a rich man, than a king. Somebody who has nothing, may have himself;
and in that very having there is peace, there is bliss, there is benediction.
So the first thing I would like to tell you is that there are no outer standards of success.
They are efforts to cover up your inner emptiness, efforts to deceive yourself and to
make you feel that you have not failed. There is only one success, absolutely only one
-- that is to be. Through that, one attains to ecstasy; through that, one attains to the
ultimate.
So it is good that I and people like me have destroyed your illusion. Once that illusion
goes you will be in a deep crisis. That is what is happening to you.
The questioner's name is Walter Hoffman -- that's what is happening to you, Hoffman.
Now you will have to take a very decisive step, a radical step. You will have to learn
the ways of inner success. Now the outer will never appeal to you. Yes, I and people
like me are to blame. The outer will never appeal to you any more. So don't go on
making efforts in the outer. Direct your energy towards the inner. Now only that can
have any meaning.
Right now you are in a limbo. The outer is there but has no meaning; the inner seems
to have meaning but is not there. This is the critical stage. But every seeker has to
pass through it. I understand this pain, this anguish, and I have all sympathy for you.
But although it looks like pain right now. once you have started contacting the inner,
you will be surprised -- it was not pain, it was a growth pain, it was a birth pain. And
you will feel blessed that it happened because you will be reborn out of it.
You say: As A U. S. PSYCHIATRIST I AM WELL-TRAINED, EXPERIENCED,
AND HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL BY OUTER STANDARDS.... Something
important is to be understood. Each age creates its own myth to live by. The modern
myth is the myth of the completely analysed person. People are trying to be
completely analysed in the hope that if they are completely analysed. there will be joy.
It does not happen. Even the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was not a
joyous man. And if it did not happen to the founder, it is not going to happen to
anybody.
You can go on analysing -- it is infinite. The mind is very creative, it goes on creating.
It is not a limited phenomenon -- that one day you can come to the end of the mind by
analysing it. You can go on analysing and something will still remain to be analysed.
You can still go on and something will still remain to be analysed. It is a non-ending
process.
The East has worked in a totally different way. The East says that the mind has not to
be analysed, one has to drop out of the mind. The problem has not to be solved, the
problem has to be dropped. In solving, you will remain in it; in solving, you will
create more and more problems. And this is happening. People who can afford
analysis -- it is a costly thing, millions cannot afford it -- but those who can afford it
go into it for years. They go on changing from one analyst to another analyst in the
hope that if it has not happened with this one, it will happen with somebody else.
It is not going to happen. Through analysis mind can never come to a state in which
you can become something beyond mind. By analysing, you will remain it. You may
become a little more smooth in your life but you will be as neurotic as anybody else.
Yes, there will be one difference -- you will be more smooth in your neurosis, more
adjusted, a little more understanding, but that does not make any radical change. The
radical change comes from the understanding that through analysis there is no way.
One has to jump out of the mind.
That's what meditation is. Meditation is just the contrary to analysis. Meditation
means that, seeing that the mind is infinite, there is no need to bother about it -- you
can get out of it. You are not the mind -- why go into it? You can slip out of it. The
mind remains in its same place but you are out of it. And once you are out of it, you
are the master of your mind. Then you can use it; then you will not be used by it.
This myth of the completely analysed person is a new dream. Man likes to dream,
man likes to invent new ideas to hope for. Sometimes it is moksha, nirvana;
sometimes it is money, power, prestige; sometimes it can become the completely
analysed person.
I have many psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and other kinds of therapists here. The
greatest number of any profession that has come to me is from therapy. There is a
reason for it. Those who have been working in therapy have by and by become aware
of one fact -- that it keeps you moving in a circle. It does not lead you anywhere, it
only pretends. It promises but it never delivers the goods. It is just an infinite circle -one can go on and on and on. It keeps you hoping, waiting, but that's all. Once you
have become aware of it then forget about analysis and try something totally different
-- that is meditation. Meditation does not mean that you have to think about the mind
-- you have to drop out of it. Meditation is an escape from the mind. meditation is
creating a distance from the mind, meditation is a transcendence.
And once you are standing above the mind, away, aloof, a watcher on the hills, things
are totally different. Then those problems are no longer relevant. When you are in
them, they are relevant. It is just like having a dream, a nightmare, at night, and being
really troubled by it. A lion is following you and you are running and running and the
lion is coming closer and closer every moment. You can feel his breath on your back.
It is terrible! And you start climbing a tree and the lion starts climbing it with you -because in a dream everything is possible. Your heart is in a turmoil, your whole body
is perspiring. And when you reach the top of the tree the lion is also there with you. A
scream comes out of you, and because of the scream you become awake. And
suddenly you start laughing, although the body is still trembling and your breath is not
rhythmic. and your body is perspiring; you can see the beads on your forehead. But
now you start laughing. You laugh at the whole thing, the ridiculousness of it -- it was
just a dream.
What has happened? Just a moment ago you were in it. It was not a dream because
you were in it, you were identified with it, you thought it was a reality. The idea that it
was real was driving you crazy. Now that you are out of it, aloof, alert, you can see
that it was just a dream. Mind is a dream -- sometimes very sweet and sometimes very
nightmarish. But it is a dream.
The effort that we have been making in the East down through the centuries, is not to
solve the problems. For example, in your nightmare you try to solve the problem of
what to do with this lion who is following you. That's what psychoanalysis is. Or you
start trying to find out where it comes from, how it happened in the first place -- 'Why
is this lion following me? And from where is this fear coming? And why am I
climbing the tree?' And you meet somebody who is very expert in analysing things, in
explaining, in creating theories, in telling you how it happened in the first place.
Maybe it is a birth trauma or maybe your parents have not treated you well. Or maybe
this lion is nobody. Just look directly into its eyes -- it is your wife or your husband
and you are afraid of your wife or your husband.
But all these explanations take one thing for granted -- that it is real. And that is the
basic problem, not where the lion has come from or what the symbolic meaning of the
lion is. That is not the real problem. The real problem is that the lion is real.
Psychoanalysis does not help you to become aware that mind is an unreal thing -illusion, maya. In fact, it takes you more into the mud and the mire. It takes you
deeper, to the roots. But an illusion cannot have any roots. You will always be getting
to the roots but you will not arrive. An illusion cannot have any cause.
Now let me repeat it, because this will make the difference very clear. An illusion
cannot have any cause, so you cannot search for the cause. You can go on and on, you
can go into the unconscious of man.... Freud did that, and did it perfectly, but that
didn't solve anything. Jung had to go deeper. He had to find something like the
collective unconscious. And you can go on. Then you can find the universal
unconscious, and so on, so forth, layer upon layer. You can go on analysing -- that
maybe it is a birth trauma, that you became very much afraid when you came out of
the birth canal from your mother's womb. But things don't end there because you were
in your mother's womb for nine months. Those nine months cannot be simply dropped.
In those nine months much happened to you. You have to go into analysing that.
And if you go deep enough you will have to enter into your previous life -- that's what
Hindu analysts have done. They say 'previous life', and then 'previous to previous',
and go on and on backwards. And you reach nowhere. Either way you come to a point
where you see the whole futility of it.
To see the futility of the mind and to see that an illusion cannot have any cause and
cannot be analysed, the only thing that can be done is to make yourself a little bit alert,
aware. In that very awareness the dream disappears. It has no grip over you. And once
the mind is not there gripping you, you are a totally new man. A new consciousness is
born in you.
And Hoffman must be aware of the futility. He has been helping people, analysing -but it has not even helped himself. That analysing has not even helped himself. Maybe
it makes things a little more clear, maybe it helps things to be a little more categorised,
pigeon-holed -- it is a kind of labelling -- but nothing essential happens. And if
something happens sometimes, it is not because of analysis. If something happens
sometimes, it may have some other causes; it has to have some other causes.
A man may become very much fed-up with the whole thing called analysis. That very
fed-upness with analysis, may create a new awareness in him. He may get bored. One
day he may understand that enough is enough. Rushing from one psychotherapist to
another psychotherapist, from one school to another school, a time comes when one
thinks that now it is enough, one need not bother about it. It doesn't matter. In that
indifference something is possible.
Or, something is possible through the magnetic personality of the therapist. My own
understanding is that the therapist helps more than the therapy. If the therapist has a
charisma -- as Freud had, Jung had, Adler had -- if the analyst has a charisma, a
magnetic personality, a certain kind of presence, that helps, that is therapeutic. That is
why it happens again and again that when the therapist is alive, it works; but when the
therapist is gone, by and by it disappears. The therapy works no more.
Psychoanalysis died with Sigmund Freud. It was his charisma not analysis itself.
Freud had a certain magnetism of personality, something that is very mysterious. One
has it or one does not have it. Whatsoever he was doing would look meaningful,
because he put the meaning into it. When a man of charisma, magnetic energy, does
anything, that thing seems to be very important. In another's hand it may become very
ordinary, mediocre. that's what it became.
Jung helped people not by what he was saying, not by what he was analysing, but just
by what he was.
But therapists are as yet unaware of the fact that it is the personal factor that helps -not the theories and the dogmas and the principles. It is something mysterious, the
personal factor, that helps.
Have you watched it sometimes? You are ill and your doctor comes. And the moment
he enters the room you start feeling good. He has not given you any medicine yet, he
has not even diagnosed what kind of illness you have, he has not even touched you.
He just enters. The moment you know your doctor has come, your physician is there,
something that was a worry disappears. You need not worry. The tension is there no
more. Now the doctor will take care. If the doctor has some personal aura in him,
even while he is testing you, taking your blood pressure and your pulse, you have
already started to be healed. Before he prescribes any medicine you are fifty per cent
healed. The medicine may not do much but the doctor has done much. It is your
confidence in him, your trust in him, his personal aura, his certainty -- 'Don't be afraid.
Now I am here.'
Psychotherapy has not yet become fully alert of the phenomenon that it is not the
therapy that helps but the personal factor. The person may not be aware himself that
he is functioning as a healing force. If you understand me rightly, it is always God
who heals. God is the only healer. If somebody is alive, flowing, then God flows
through him. Psychotherapy has yet to understand this magic, this MANA, this
energy.
In the East a person will simply go to his Master, touch the feet of the Master, and be
healed. The Master is not doing any analysis, any therapy, nothing, the Master has no
expertise about it -- it is just the personal energy, the aroma that surrounds the Master,
and the trust that the patient brings. What psychoanalysis is doing in the East is nil
because there are so few psychoanalysts in the East. But people are more
psychologically healthy, far more psychologically healthy, than the Western
counterpart.
And much is going on to help people in the West, great energy is being put into
helping people psychologically, but still they remain psychologically ill.
Psychoanalysis has not yet come home; it has yet far to go. And when it really comes
home it will be found that it is not the theory but the person that helps.
Now, Hoffman says: BUT NOW WHAT TO DO? I NO LONGER FEEL THAT I AM
A DOCTOR OR THERAPIST OR ANALYST, ONLY A PERSON, AND PERHAPS
A TEACHER. YOU AND OTHERS LIKE YOU ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS. If you
are not feeling like a doctor, not feeling like a therapist, not feeling like an analyst,
you are coming close to the point which I am talking about. You are becoming a
person. A person means a presence. If you are feeling like a person you will be able to
help many more people than you have ever helped before, but now be conscious of
the phenomenon that everything else is secondary.
The most primary thing is the presence that the therapist brings to the patient. The
patient has lost hope, the patient has fallen into a negative space, the patient is in
despair, the patient cannot trust any more, the patient has become shrunken into
himself, he has collapsed. The real therapist will bring his presence, his positivity, his
aliveness, his streaming energy to the patient. He will come there like a fresh breeze,
new sunrays. He will bring something of the divine to the patient, something of prayer
and meditation. He will overwhelm the patient, he will surround him from everywhere,
he will become a womb, a warm womb for the patient, and things will start happening.
Miracles start happening.
And I am not saying that you should drop your expertise. Use it -- but it is secondary.
First have a person-to-person contact with the patient, first let him share something of
your presence so that he starts hoping again, so that his negative space starts turning
into a positive space. Let him feel your joy, let him feel your trust in life, let him feel
you -- that you are there. Let him see that life is not meaningless. Sing a song or dance
around him but let this message be very loud and clear to him -- that life has meaning.
Let him see that it has meaning for you, why can't it have meaning for him? And he
will start coming out of his despair. You have reached him, you have taken his hand in
your hand; you can pull him out of his confusion, you can pull him out of his anguish.
Once he is pulled out of his despair, healing forces start working. Healing forces are
always around, God is always around. When you fall into a negative space you cannot
connect with god and then you need a link -- one who can connect with God.
So, Hoffman, perfectly good! Become a person. Forget therapy, forget analysis.
Become a person. And when I say 'forget therapy, forget analysis' I don't mean don't
use them -- but don't be identified with them. They will be there, your whole
knowledge, your experience, will be there; but now let this experience and knowledge
become secondary to your presence. It will help to a certain extent, it will be good.
In Zen they say that if you really want to become a painter then learn painting for
years. Then for a few years forget all about painting. Throw away the brush and the
canvas and the colour and do something else and become completely oblivious to the
fact that you know anything about painting. First learn, then unlearn -- and then one
day, suddenly, you will be painting. And your painting wi!l have innocence -- the
inno-cence of a child -- and the expertise of one who knows. Both will be there. And
when both are there, there is great art.
Remember, you may be very, very feelingful, you may be very poetic, but you may
not know how to put it into colour, you may not know the technique. then your
painting will be just worthless, amateur. Or you can become a great technician, you
can know everything about colour and the brush and form, you can have studied in an
academy, you can be a great technician, but you don't have any feeling, you don't have
any love, you don't have any poetry. Your heart has no song. Then you can paint -and your painting will be perfect technically -- but it will be dead. The real artist has
both qualities -- the innocence of a child and technical expertise. But when he paints
he forgets all technicalities. They are there, from the deep unconscious they are
working, but he forgets all expertise. He becomes inno-cent. He paints like an amateur.
He does not know anything he paints from the mind of not-knowing -- so there is
freshness, there is vision. And the expertise goes on functioning from the unconscious.
It is there, it is in his blood, in his bones. There is no need to remember it, there is no
need to be self-conscious about it. Then something of the unknown descends into the
known.
And the same should be the principle for every kind of life you are going to live.
Know it well technically and then forget the techniques. Then go into it very
innocently. If you are feeling like a person, that is the best thing that can happen to a
person.
... AND PERHAPS A TEACHER. Good. That word 'perhaps' is beautiful. If you were
very certain about being a teacher I would have told you to drop that idea; it is
dangerous. 'Perhaps' is good, hesitation is good. A good teacher is always 'perhaps'.
He is not dogmatic, he is not rigid; he is liquid, he is flowing, he is spontaneous. He
cannot destroy; he can only create. When you become very dogmatic and certain, you
become destructive. You become a pedagogue, not a teacher.
So both things are good, Hoffman. Go inwards, become a person and perhaps a
teacher.
You say: NOW I AM ONLY LISTENING TO THE INNER VOICE FOR
DIRECTION. IS THERE ANY MORE I CAN DO? No, if you do anything you will
disturb the whole thing. You simply wait. Simply wait, prayerfully, meditatively.
Things are happening. The inner voice will start leading you. And when the inner
voice starts leading you, don't be cunning, don't choose. Don't say, 'This I will choose
and this I will not choose.' Then it will not be of any meaning. Then even if it does
come from the inner voice, if you remain the chooser you decide from the ego. Now
relax into the inner voice. Let it take possession of you.
It will be difficult for you because you say you are 'experienced, well-trained and
successful'. It will be difficult for you because one never knows where the inner voice
is leading. The inner voice may say to you 'become a sannyasin' -- that's what my
feeling is. But then don't bring your experienced mind and successful past and your
well-trained state into it. Don't interfere. If the inner voice says 'become a sannyasin',
then become a sannyasin -- there is nothing to do on your part. Just be possessed. The
more you trust the inner voice, the more clear and loud it will become. And the more
you trust and act accordingly, by and by you will see there is no need to think about
anything.
God goes on giving you hints, but you don't listen. God goes on saying what has to be
done, but he whispers -- that's true. He does not shout. And we are so full of noise that
that whisper is lost. Listen to the inner voice, that is God's voice. And don't only listen,
act on it. Move into commitment, into involvement.
When you start acting on the inner voice.... Sometimes it will be very risky, but take
the risk -- because only when there is risk is there life, only when there is risk is there
growth. Live dangerously. If the voice says 'do this' then do it and don't bother too
much about consequences. Nothing else matters.
And sometimes your mind will tell you that this is too much -- think about it. If you
think, the inner voice will be lost. It is lost in thinking. Don't think. Act. And you will
see that each act brings you closer and closer to the voice. And when you have acted
many times and have seen that the voice always takes you to the right place, then
there will be no doubt. And then thinking can be dropped. It is a substitute. Because
we have forgotten how to listen to God, we have to think.
The real man of awareness need not think. God goes on supplying him with all that is
needed, whenever it is needed.
The second and third questions are connected:
Question 2
DO YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF CONTRAPTION IN YOUR ROOM WITH
WHICH YOU CONTROL OR ALTER THE MOODS OF EVERYONE IN THE
ASHRAM, PUTTING EVERYONE INTO THE SAME OR SIMILAR MOOD AT
THE SAME TIME? IT SEEMS THAT EVERYONE GOES THROUGH THE SAME
CYCLE OR PHASES, NOT AS INDIVIDUALS BUT AS A COMMUNITY.
WHAT'S UP?
And the third:
Question 3
IS THERE A COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS AT THE ASHRAM? EVERY OTHER
QUESTION I HAVE THOUGHT TO ASK HAS BEEN ASKED BY SOMEONE
ELSE, OR YOU HAVE ANSWERED IT ANYWAY.
The second is from Big Prem and the third from Anand Samatha.
That is the meaning of a commune. A commune slowly, slowly grows a soul. And if
the soul is missing, the commune is not a commune. then it is a crowd. A crowd has
no soul. When a crowd has a soul, it is a commune. Then there is a centre where all
meet.
I am your centre. You are here because of me. You are all here because of me; each of
you is deeply involved with me. I am functioning as a centre to you all. Prem is
involved with me, so is Samatha involved with me. And when you all are involved
with me, naturally you become involved with all. Each becomes involved with all.
I am your space, your bridge, from where you move into each other. If you really love
me, this is going to happen more and more. Before you have asked the question, it
will be answered. Before you have asked the question, many will have asked it. You
need only to wait a little.
And there will be moods -- when the whole commune will pass through a phase and a
cycle simultaneously. This is going to happen. The closer you come to me, the more it
will be happening. Yes, something is up. And Prem has felt it rightly.
You are disappearing as separate units.
This is the meaning of a church, really. This is the meaning of a church, a commune.
We pool our consciousnesses into one space and then each affects each other. Then
great energy is released. Alone you cannot go very high. Alone, you are alone. Alone,
you have all kinds of limitations. When you are one with many, infinite energy is
available. And many things will start happening which cannot happen alone.
For example, a solo guitar player is one thing. An orchestra is totally different. Yes, it
is beautiful, a solo guitarist is beautiful, but there is a kind of limitation. It cannot be
very rich, because it will not have many dimensions to it. It is solo. The orchestra is
far more rich. Many dimensions, many directions, meet in it. Many kinds of
instruments and many artists pool their energy and a harmony arises. This is what a
commune is -- an orchestra.
You are pooling your energies with me. and, naturally, you will start feeling the same
kind of rhythm, the same moods passing through the whole commune.
If you are alone it is difficult to keep awake. But if you are with a few people -laughing, talking, joking -- you can keep awake the whole night very easily. It would
have been difficult for each to remain alert the whole night, but together it is simple.
The total energy is so much -- laughing, joking, singing, talking -- that it keeps you
alert.
And this whole experiment is to bring a kind of Buddhahood into the world. This
commune is not an ordinary commune. This is an experiment to provoke God. You
may not be aware of what is going to happen. You may be aware of only your
prob-lems. You may have come to me only to solve your problems. That is secondary.
I am cooking something else.
I am trying to create a space where God can descend more and more. This commune
will become a connection. The world has lost the connection. God is no more a reality.
As far as this century is concerned, Neitzsche is right that God is dead. The
connection is broken. God can only be through the connection. God will be there, we
are here, but there is no bridge. So how do we know?
This commune is an experiment to create the bridge. Fall more and more in harmony.
Pool your energies. And remember, a small stream cannot reach the ocean. It will be
lost somewhere, it is so far away. It will be lost in some desertland, some wasteland.
But if many small streams pool into one, they become a Ganges. Then it can reach the
ocean. Even the Ganges cannot reach alone.
If you go to the source of the Ganges it is just drops dripping. In Gangotri, the source
of Ganges, there is a marble cow mouth and the Ganges comes out of it. So small.
How can you hope it will reach the ocean? But millions of tributaries, millions of
small streams and rivers, pool their energies and the Ganges becomes a great river.
then nothing can hold it. Then it reaches the ocean.
A commune is an effort to create a Ganges of consciousness. It is happening. And it
will be happening more and more if you become more co-operative and more
conscious of it. Don't create any conflict here. Don't be resistant about small things.
Relax, co-operate. Even if you have to lose something, don't be afraid -- because your
losing will be a gaining in the end.
Don't bring your egos in, otherwise you destroy my work. Throw your egos away.
Something far more valuable is happening here. And soon many will be coming, and
you will become the precedent, you will become the pattern of what will happen to
them. Soon many will be coming, in thousands. Before they start coming you have to
prepare the orchestra, otherwise there will be a great noise.
Have you watched it? If thirty persons are singing in rhythm, in harmony, and you
join in, immediately you start falling into rhythm and harmony. But if they are just
noisy, and there is no rhythm and no harmony and there is just chaos, you also
become a chaos.
I am working slowly -- slowly I am adding more people to your commune. Soon there
will be thousands. I want to create a small city, sooner or later, where people will be
living totally egolessly. And the more people there will be, the greater is the
possibility for happenings, for miracles -- because God will be more available. The
sky will come more close to you.
Remember it always -- whenever your small ego comes in as a conflict. When a small
river comes to meet the Ganges, naturally the ego will come in. The ego will say,
'What are you doing? You will be lost. You will no longer be yourself. You will lose
your identity. If you move with the Ganges you will be called Ganges -- your name
will be lost.'
That's what sannyas is. The moment you take sannyas you are part of me; you are lost.
You will be known by me, you will not be known by yourself. That is courage. By
taking sannyas you are simply merging into a totally different kind of existence
because you are merging into me. Sannyas is your death, and a rebirth -- death as an
ego, and rebirth as a consciousness.
But if the small river thinks, 'I am not ready to lose myself in the Ganges,' then the
river will be lost in a desert. And that will be suicide. With the Ganges it is not suicide.
With the Ganges, the river becomes the Ganges. It is only a question of how you look
at it. If you look poSitively, the river becomes bigger. It is no longer small, no longer
confined to its own small banks. Now the Ganges is what she is, now the Ganges'
being is her being. That is another way of looking at it. And that should be the
attitude.
When you join me as a sannyasin, you are dropping yourself, disappearing. When you
join the commune then you have to utterly efface yourself. If a little bit is hanging
there, then you will be a trouble to yourself and to the commune too. And you will not
be benefitted by me.
This is happening, and this is going to happen more and more. Be prepared for it.
The fourth question:
Question 4
AYN RAND, THE ORIGINATOR OF OBJECTIVISM PHILOSOPHY, WENT MAD
AND COMMITTED SUICIDE. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO SUCH A RARE,
LOGICAL MIND?
Precisely! It happened because of such a logical, rational mind. The rational mind
cannot go beyond suicide and madness. That is the ultimate that has to happen. If
some logical person is not mad it simply means that he is not logical enough. If some
logical person has not committed suicide yet, it simply means that he is mediocre. He
has not touched the pinnacle of logicality. If you reach to the pinnacle of logicality,
life loses all meaning -- because logic cannot give any meaning. Logic takes away all
meaning. Logic is destructive, poisonous.
It is love that gives meaning to life, it is love that blooms and flowers, it is love that
sings and dances, it is love that becomes celebration. A logical mind by and by loses
all possibility of loving -- because love is so illogical it cannot exist with logic. They
prohibit each other, they exclude each other. If you love, you become illogical; if you
are very logical, you become unloving. and without love, what is there to live by, to
live with, to live for? What is there?
Ayn Rand was a very egoistic, rationalistic, realistic woman. Her philosophy is that of
absolute selfishness. If you are absolutely selfish, how can you be loving? It is
impossible. Her philosophy is absolutely realistic, materialistic. When there is only
matter, what is there to bloom into? There is no soul. All search disappears. Life is flat
and dull. There is no mystery. With the soul enter mystery and life. With mystery
there is joy, because there is a possibility to enquire, to explore, to expand. There is a
possibility that something may happen, can happen.
Man is more than he knows. You are more than you know. Not only that, you are
more than you can ever know, because your intrinsic reality remains mysterious,
always remains unknown, unknowable. You can go on knowing more and more and
more but that does not reduce your mystery. That's what we mean by soul -- utterly
mysterious.
For Ayn Rand there was no mystery. When there is no mystery, how can there be life?
Then what is there to live for? Suicide seems to be the logical conclusion. And if you
don't commit suicide, then madness is the conclusion. Those seem to be the two
alternatives. Either go mad -- mad means go illogical, drop your rational mind -- or
commit suicide, drop this useless life.
Jean Paul Sartre has said: 'Man is a useless passion.' Now my feeling is that Sartre is
not very, very logical, otherwise he would have committed suicide. If man is a useless
passion, if there is no meaning in it, if life is meaninglessness, then why go on living?
Why think of tomorrow -- that you would like to exist tomorrow? That is very
irrational. If nothing is going to happen, if nothing has ever happened, if nothing
happens in the very reality, then why go on living? Why go on eating and why go on
sleeping and getting up again and again? It is nauseating.
Another book of Sartre's is NAUSEA. But it seems it is still philosophical, he has not
taken it existentially -- otherwise suicide would be the logical conclusion to the
philosophy. Beware. These possibilities are in you too. If you become too logical,
madness or suicide or both will be the conclusion.
That's why I teach you love not logic, feeling not reasoning, heart not mind. Then life
has such beauty, such beatitude, such joy, that one cannot contain it. It is so much, it is
so over-flowing, so overwhelming.
You ask me: AYN RAND, THE ORIGINATOR OF OBJECTIVISM PHILOSOPHY,
WENT MAD AND COMMITTED SUICIDE. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO
SUCH A RARE LOGICAL MIND? The question is from Sudheer Saraswati. I say
'Precisely. '
The fifth question:
Question 5
I AM VERY AFRAID OF DYING. CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT THE SECRET OF
ACHIEVING A LONG LIFE IS?
Keep breathing!
The sixth question:
Question 6
I HAVE BEEN THINKING AND THINKING ABOUT TAKING SANNYAS FOR
FIVE YEARS, YET I CANNOT DECIDE. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Get lost!
And the seventh question:
Question 7
SHOULD ONE LOVE ONE'S NEIGHBOUR?
Make sure that her husband is not at home.
So you like one-liners! But God has not heard about it!
I have heard....
God called together his writers, 'Gentlemen, I have a big show coming up next week
on Mount Sinai and I need some material.'
'How about: "Thou shalt not steal"?' one of them volunteered.
'Thou shalt not kill,' suggested another.
'Thou shalt not.... '
'Wait!' thundered the Lord. 'How many times have I told you I can't use one-liners!'
But people like them! Sometimes just a single word, unexplained, unelaborated, goes
deep, falls like a seed in the heart, can open doors.
The eighth question:
Question 8
IF YOU DO NOT DO MIRACLES, THEN HOW IS IT THAT MIRACLES ARE
HAPPENING TO ME?
The question is from Chaman Bharti.
I do not do miracles, but they happen. The happening is a totally different
phenomenon. They are happening every day. I am not doing them, you are not doing
them, they are happening. We are creating a space where it becomes possible for them
to happen.
The real miracles are never done, they happen. And those which are done are not
miracles, they are just magic tricks. When the doer is there, how can there be a
miracle? A miracle means something out of God, something from the beyond,
something that nobody has done but has suddenly concretised out of nothing.
Christians have a very wrong notion when they say, 'Jesus did this, Jesus did that.'
Jesus never did anything, not a single miracle. Miracles happen, that is true. Miracles
always happen. The whole life is so miraculous! If you have a little alertness you will
see miracles and miracles all around. A bud opening into a flower -- you don't call it a
miracle because you have become so accustomed to it. A seed sprouting, coming out
of the earth -- you don't call it a miracle. What more can a miracle do? A dewdrop just
slipping down a grass leaf, with the sun reflected in it -- just a dewdrop. It looks so
precious; the whole existence is reflected in it. A star in the night, a small baby
smiling, a woman crying with eyes full of tears -- all is miraculous because all is
mysterious.
You are dull, dead, insensitive, so you go on missing it. Otherwise it is all over the
place. And there is no need to do. One has just to be receptive.
The ninth question:
Question 9
OSHO, I LIKE MY NAME BUT I LIKE WOMEN TOO.
The questioner is Swami Prabhu Anuragi. The name means: lover of God -- hence the
question.
He says: I LIKE MY NAME BUT I LIKE WOMEN TOO. But who has told you that
God is against women, or that God is not in women? In fact, God is far more in
women than in men. Men. have gone further astray than women have; women are still
closer to nature, closer to feeling, closer to God.
When you love a woman, what do you really love in her? It will be different with
different people and it will be different at different times. If love really grows, this is
the way: first you fall in love with the woman because her body is beautiful. That is
the first available beauty -- her face, her eyes, her proportion, her elegance, her
dancing, pulsating energy. Her body is beautiful. That is the first approach. You fall in
love.
Then after a few days you start going deeper into the woman. You start loving her
heart. Now a far more beautiful revelation is coming to you. The body becomes
secondary; the heart becomes primary. A new vision has arisen, a new peak. If you go
on loving the woman, sooner or later you will find there are peaks beyond peaks,
depths beyond depths. Then you start loving the soul of the woman. Then it is not
only her heart -- now that has become secondary. Now it is the very person, the very
presence, the very radiance, the aliveness, that unknown phenomenon of her being -that she is. The body is very far away, the heart has also gone away -- now the being
is.
And then one day this particular woman's being becomes far away. Now you start
loving womanhood in her, the femininity, the feminineness, that receptivity. Now she
is not a particular woman at all, she simply reflects womanhood, a particular form of
womanhood. Now it is no longer individual, it is becoming more and more universal.
And one day that womanhood has also disappeared -- you love the humanity in her.
Now she is not just a representative of woman, she is also a representative of man as
much. The sky is becoming bigger and bigger. Then one day it is not humanity, but
existence. That she exists, that's all that you want -- that she exists. You are coming
very close to God.
Then the last point comes -- all formulations and all forms disappear and there is God.
You have found God through your woman, through your man. Each love is an echo of
God's love.
So no need to be worried, Prabhu Anuragi. I have given you the name lover of God,
but that does not mean you have to destroy your love for women, that does not mean
you have to destroy your love for anything. It simply means you have to deepen it,
you have to go on deepening it. Dig more and more, dig deeper, and one day you will
find your beloved has disappeared and God is standing there -- because God is hiding
in every being, in every form. He is dwelling in every house. Your woman is a house,
is a temple; so is your man.
I am for love. Even when you fall in love with the body, I am not against it. It is the
farthest from God, but still it is related to God. It is a very faraway echo but still it is
an echo -- the original is still there somewhere. Never let your love stop anywhere.
The tenth question:
Question 10
HOW TO DROP JUDGING PEOPLE?
There is no need to stop or drop judging people; you have to understand why you
judge and how you judge.
You can judge only the behaviour because only the behaviour is available. You cannot
judge the person because the person is hiding behind, the person is a mystery. You can
judge the act but you cannot judge the being.
And the act is irrelevant. It will not be right to judge a being through the act.
Sometimes it happens that a man is smiling. The act is there on the surface and deep
inside he may be sad. In fact, he may be smiling because he is sad. He does not want
to show his sadness to anybody -- why bring one's wounds to everybody? Why? That
seems embarrassing. Maybe he is smiling just because he is crying deep down.
Nietzsche has said, 'I go on smiling. People think I am a very jolly person and that is
absolutely wrong. I go on laughing because I am afraid that if I don't laugh, I may
start crying. So I have to convert my energy somewhere otherwise it will become
tears. Before it becomes tears it has to become laughter.' The insight is perfectly true.
Nietzsche is one of the most perceptive men ever born on the earth. Tears and smiles
are very close.
In Indian villages women say to their children, 'Don't laugh too much otherwise you
will start crying.' And that happens. If a child laughs too much he starts crying. Tears
and smiles are very close. If you want to hide your tears the best way is to smile -that's why people are smiling. Just by seeing a smiling face you cannot judge what is
happening inside. The inside is not available to you. The inside is private; it is not
available to anybody.
So the first thing to understand is that you can look only at the behaviour and the
behaviour does not mean much. All that is really significant is the person behind. And
you don't know. Your judgements are going to be wrong. And you know it -- because
when people judge you by your acts, you always feel that they have judged you
wrongly. You don't judge yourself by your acts, you judge yourself by your being. So
everybody feels that all judgements are unjust. You feel that judgements are unjust
because to you your being is available -- and the being is such a big phenomenon and
the act is so tiny and small. It does not define anything. It may be just a momentary
thing.
You said something to somebody and he became angry, but don't judge him by his
anger because it may be just a momentary flash. He may be a very loving person. If
you judge him by his anger you misjudge him. And then your behaviour will depend
on your judgement. And you will always wait for the man to be angry and you will
always think that he is an angry man. You will avoid the person. You have missed an
opportunity. Never judge anybody by their action -- but that is the only thing available
to you. So what to do? Judge ye not.
By and by become more and more aware of the privacy of being. Every being inside
his own soul is so private there is no way to penetrate it. Even when you love,
something at the deepest core remains private. That is man's dignity. That is the
meaning when we say man has a soul. Soul means that which can never become
public. Something of it will always remain deep, lost in some mystery.
I have heard....
Two men were called to a home and asked to haul some trash to a garbage heap. After
they had loaded the truck the back of the truck was overflowing with all the trash.
One man said, 'You may get into trouble with the police if we drive through town and
the trash blows onto the street.'
The other man said, 'Don't worry, I have an idea. You drive and I will spread my body
over the trash and that will keep it from blowing about.'
On the way to the garbage heap they passed under a bridge. As they drove under it,
two men standing on top of the bridge happened to look down and saw the man lying
on top of the garbage, arms and legs spread wide.
One of the men said, 'Will you look at that! Someone is throwing away perfectly good
men!'
From the outside that's what we can judge. From the outside it is always wrong.
Seeing it again and again, understanding it again and again, penetrating it again and
again, you will not need to drop judgements, they drop of their own accord.
Just watch. Whenever you judge, you are doing something foolish. It does not apply
to the person at all, it can apply only to the act. And that act too is taken out of context
because you don't know his whole life. It is as if you tear a page from a novel and you
read it and you judge the novel by it. It is not right; it is out of context. The whole
novel may be a totally different thing. You may have taken a negative part, an ugly
part.
But you don't know anybody's life in its totality. A man has lived for forty years
before you come to meet him. Those forty years of context are there. The man is
going to live forty years more when you have left him. Those forty years of context
are going to be there. And you saw the man, just a single instance of him, and you
judged him. That is not right. That is just stupid. It will not have any relevance to the
man himself.
Your judgement will show something more about you than about the man. 'Judge ye
not so that ye may not be judged' -- that's what Jesus says. Your judgement shows
something about you, nothing about the person you have judged -- because his history
remains unavailable to you, his being remains unavailable to you. All contexts are lost,
there is just a momentary flash -- and your interpretation will be your interpretation. It
will show something about you.
Seeing this, judging disappears.
The last question:
Question 11
OSHO, ARE ALL WORDS USELESS?
Not all. How can all words be useless? Words are useful as far as the world is
concerned, the outer; words are useless as far as you are concerned, the inner. When
you start moving inwards you have to drop words. They are not needed. They are an
unnecessary load on you, a disturbance, a noise.
But when you go outwards and you meet people, you need language. When you are
talking about things, you need language. Language is perfectly adequate for the world
-- otherwise there would be great difficulty. If you go to the market and you want to
purchase something, you will be in difficulty without words. And it will be an
unnecessary wastage of time. Words are tremendously useful instruments.
If you want to see it, one day go into the market and try to purchase things without
words. Each small thing will take so much time and so much trouble, and each
shopkeeper will try to avoid you -- 'You please go somewhere else.' You will be such a
nuisance.
In the world, words are perfectly useful. In the inner journey they are not useful
because in the inner journey they are not needed at all. You are alone, so what are the
words needed for? When you are with somebody, words are needed.
If you are working in some objective reality, some scientific work, words are useful.
Thinking is needed. You have to be very precise and very exact. You are thinking with
your logic. But if you are meditating, going towards God, words are not needed.
Silence is the medium there.
So listening to me and hearing again and again that words are not needed, that words
are useless, don't misunderstand me. Meditate over this small story....
A man went to his Local doctor and said, 'Doctor, I want to be castrated.'
'What?' said the doctor. 'That's a very drastic operation -- are you sure?'
'Quite sure,' said the man.
'Are you married, or do you have a regular girl friend?' said the doctor.
'I'm married,' said the man, 'but what has that got to do with it?'
'Well,' said the doctor, 'it would be a good idea to discuss it with your wife -- it will
affect her too.'
'Yes, true, but only for a time.' said the patient.
'Nevertheless,' said the doctor, 'I think you should ask her about it tonight and if you
still want to go ahead tomorrow, I'll book you into the hospital. It's very quick and
you'll be in and out in one day.'
The next day the man returned, affirmed the situation and was booked in that morning.
The operation was completed and he was lying in bed that afternoon, coming out of
the anaesthetic. Looking round with a smile, feeling good. he winked at the man in the
next bed and said cheerily, 'Hello, and what are you in for?'
'Oh,' said the other, 'I've come in to be circumcised.'
The castrated patient clicked his fingers, whistled through his teeth and said, 'Shit,
that's the word I was trying to think of!!!'
And the really, really last question:
Question 12
BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER. MY HEART IS FILLED
WITH JOY WHERE THERE WAS ALWAYS PAIN. I FEEL WITH GREAT
SURPRISE THAT IT IS TRUE -- I HAVE A CHOICE. I BOW IN GRATITUDE.
VANI.
This is significant. This is significant to you all. There is always a choice. If you are
miserable, it is your choice. Never throw the responsibility onto anybody else. If you
throw the responsibility onto somebody else, you will remain miserable. By throwing
the responsibility onto somebody you are throwing away your freedom, you are
throwing away your freedom to choose.
This has to be one of the most fundamental principles around here -- that misery or
happiness is your choice. Let it sink deep in you. You choose it. When you are
unhappy you have chosen to be unhappy. There is no other excuse. Once you
understand this you will be freed from the prison. Then it is up to you.
I have heard about a great Sufi mystic who was always happy, always cheerful,
always blissed out.
A disciple asked him, 'Master, you always look so happy. I have been watching you
for many years, in many situations. Day in, day out, for years I have observed you. All
kinds of situations have passed, must have passed, but you always remain happy.
What is your secret?'
The Master said, 'There is no secret in it. Whatsoever situation confronts me, I always
have the choice: to be happy or to be unhappy. And I always choose to be happy.'
Try it. This is a magic formula. In each situation, look before you become unhappy or
happy -- look. Is there a possibility of being happy? And you will always find that the
possibility is there. There is always something to be happy about. If you want to be
unhappy then there is always something to be unhappy about.
The world is full of thorns and full of flowers. It is neither a rose-bed nor a thorn-bed
-- it is full of both. It depends on you. You can choose flowers and you can make a
bed of flowers and sleep on the bed of roses. Or you can choose thorns and suffer.
Hell is your creation, so is heaven.
Vani is an important case. Vani had been asking to come into the ashram again and
again for two, three years, and I was postponing it. I told her, 'You are needed there.'
She was a hostess, well-paid in the German airlines. But she persisted.
Why was I postponing? Why was I saying to her, 'You just wait a little more?' -because she was always so miserable and I don't want miserable people to be around
here. One miserable person is enough to create much misery in others, because others
are just coming out of their misery and when they see somebody, a great miserable
person, they tend to fall back into their old habit. Then they start competing with the
miserable person -- 'What! Do you think you are ahead? I can beat you.'
So I put Vani off but she persisted -- the German persistence -- and finally she came.
And, of course, she has remained miserable for these few months she has been here.
She got more and more miserable.
But this is beautiful of her -- that she has understood the fact. I have been telling her
again and again in so many ways that it is her choice. She has come out of it. I hope
she will remain out of it. It will be difficult. Old habits die hard. One tends to slip
back into them. They are very comfortable and cosy. One feels very good falling into
the old habits. One knows them, one has known them so long. They are so familiar
and so friendly. The new is so strange.
So, Vani, this is good. I was waiting for this to happen some day. It has happened. You
say: BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER. MY HEART IS FILLED
WITH JOY WHERE THERE WAS ALWAYS PAIN. I FEEL WITH GREAT
SURPRISE THAT IT IS TRUE -- I HAVE A CHOICE. I BOW IN GRATITUDE.
Continue to remember it. Don't forget it for a single moment. For just a few days you
will have to remember it. Once it has become your climate then the old cannot win
over it. The old was so ugly, the new is so beautiful. The new is so heavenly, the old
was nightmarish and hellish. It cannot win over it. But the new needs a little time so
that it can take root in your being.
I am happy, Vani. With all my blessings go deeper into your new space.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #11
Chapter title: The Royal Way
6 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709060
ShortTitle:
SUFIS211
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 106 mins
THE SUFI ANCIENT, JUNAID, TAUGHT BY DEMONSTRATION, THROUGH A
METHOD IN WHICH HE ACTUALLY LIVED THE PART WHICH HE WAS
TRYING TO ILLUSTRATE. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE:
ONCE HE WAS FOUND BY A NUMBER OF SEEKERS, SITTING
SURROUNDED BY EVERY IMAGINABLE LUXURY.
THESE PEOPLE LEFT HIS PRESENCE AND SOUGHT THE HOUSE OF A MOST
AUSTERE AND ASCETIC HOLY MAN, WHOSE SURROUNDINGS WERE SO
PLAIN THAT HE HAD NOTHING BUT A MAT AND A JUG OF WATER.
THE SPOKESMAN OF THE SEEKERS SAID, 'YOUR SIMPLE MANNERS AND
AUSTERE ENVIRONMENT ARE MUCH MORE TO OUR LIKING THAN THE
GARISH AND SHOCKING EXCESSES OF JUNAID, WHO SEEMS TO HAVE
TURNED HIS BACK UPON THE PATH OF TRUTH.'
THE ASCETIC HEAVED A GREAT SIGH AND STARTED TO WEEP.
'MY DEAR FRIENDS, SHALLOWLY INFECTED BY THE OUTWARD SIGNS
WHICH BESET MAN AT EVERY TURN,' HE SAID, 'KNOW THIS, AND CEASE
TO BE UNFORTUNATES! THE GREAT JUNAID IS SURROUNDED AT THIS
MOMENT BY LUXURY BECAUSE HE IS IMPERVIOUS TO LUXURY. AND I
AM SURROUNDED BY SIMPLICITY BECAUSE I AM IMPERVIOUS TO
SIMPLICITY.'
THE belief in the myth of change is the most dangerous kind of belief. Man has
suffered much from it -- much more than from any other kind of belief. The myth of
change -- that something better is possible, that man can improve upon himself, that
there is some place to go to, that there is somebody to be, that there is some kind of
utopia -- has corrupted human mind infinitely down the centuries. It has been a
constant poisoning.
Man is already there. Man has been all along that which he wants to be. Man need not
change in order to be. All that is needed is an understanding, an awareness -- not a
change. Becoming is never going to give you being. Through becoming you will
remain constantly in anguish, in tension -- because becoming means that the goal is
somewhere else, that the goal is never here, never now, that the goal is far away. You
have to strive for it and your whole life is wasted in striving. And you can go on
striving and you will not find it because the goal is here and now, and you are looking
then and there.
Your being is in the present, and all ideas of becoming are projections into the future.
By projecting into the future, you go on missing the present. That is a way of escaping
from the reality. The idea that you have to become something is the idea that takes
you away from your real being, from your authentic being. You are already that -that's why I say the myth of change is one of the most dangerous myths.
It has two dimensions to it. One is political, the other is religious.
The political dimension is that the society can be improved, that revolution can help,
that there is a utopia that can be realised. Because of this, politicians have been able to
torture, to murder, to exploit, to oppress. And people have suffered in the hope that
revolution is going to happen. That revolution never happens. Revolutions come and
go and society remains as it has always been.
Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, can exploit people for their own sake. And if you want to get to
the utopia, to the wonderland, to paradise, you obviously have to pay for it. This is the
secular dimension of the myth -- that something better is possible. Right now it is not
there, but some day it can be -- you have to sacrifice for it. Millions of people were
killed in Soviet Russia, tortured inhumanly, for their own good. And logic says that if
you want to have a better society, who is going to pay for it? You are going to pay for
it, naturally. So the people cannot even revolt, they cannot even resist. If they resist,
they look like enemies of the revolution. And the myth is so deep-rooted in the mind
that they accept all kinds of humiliations in the hope that maybe if they cannot live in
a golden age, their children will. This is the secular direction of the same neurosis.
The religious dimension is that you can have a better future -- if not in this life, then
in the next. Of course, you have to sacrifice. If you sacrifice the present, you will have
the future.
That future never comes. The future in itself cannot come. The tomorrow is not
possible, it is always today. It is always the present that is there. The future is just in
the mind, in the imagination. It is a dream; it is not part of reality.
The political myth has been taken up by the sadists -- those who want to torture others.
and the religious myth has been taken up by the masochists -- those who want to
torture themselves. Torture yourself. Fast. Don't sleep. Don't do this. Don't do that.
This is the whole secret of the so-called ascetic attitude towards life: torture yourself.
And naturally, your body is helpless, your body is defenceless. It cannot protest. It
cannot go against you.
There is a possibility that people may revolt against the politicians, but what is the
possibility that your body may revolt .against you? There is no possibility. The body
is very innocent, helpless. You can go on torturing it and you can go on feeling that
you have immense power because you can torture it. You can go on killing it, and feel
powerful. And you can attain to a great ego.
I here are two kinds of people in the world: the sadists and the masochists. Sadists are
those whose enjoyment consists of torturing others, and masochists are those whose
enjoyment consists of torturing themselves -- but it is the same violence, it is the same
aggression. The sadist throws it on somebody else; the masochist turns it upon himself.
Because the sadist throws it on others, sooner or later they will revolt. But when the
maso-chist throws it upon himself there is nobody to revolt.
In fact, all revolutionaries; once they are in power, by and by lose respect. Sooner or
later they are dethroned; sooner or later their power is destroyed; sooner or later they
are thought to be criminals. Your whole history consists of these criminals. Your
history is not the history of humanity because it is not the history of humanness. How
can it be the history of humanity? It is not the history of humanity, it is only the
history of politics, political conflicts, struggles, wars.
It is as it you write the history of robbers and murderers and you call it the history of
humanity. The revolutionaries are great murderers, they are no ordinary murderers -otherwise they would have been in the jail or sentenced to death. They are powerful
people. They possess power. Until their power goes, they are worshipped like God.
But their power goes sooner or later. A day comes when Hitler is no longer honoured;
he becomes an ugly dirty name. A day comes when Stalin is no longer honoured. Just
the reverse happens.
But with the other dimension, the religious dimension, of the myth -- the ascetic, the
self-torturer, the masochist -- people never come to know their reality because they
never torture anybody else. They torture only themselves. And people go on
respecting them. People respect them very much because they are not harmful to
anybody except to themselves. That is their business. The ascetics have always been
wor-shipped. But ascetism is a kind of neurosis; it is not normal.
To eat too much is abnormal; to fast is also abnormal. the right amount of food is
normality. To be in the middle is to be normal. To be exactly in the middle is to be
healthy and whole and holy.
If you go to one extreme, you become a politician. If you go to the other extreme, you
become a religious fanatic, an ascetic. Both have missed balance.
So the first thing to be understood is that the religion that we are creating here -- and it
has to be created again and again because it becomes corrupted again and again -- the
religion that we are invoking here is not political and is not in the ordinary sense even
religious. It is neither sadistic nor masochistic. It is normal. It is to be in the middle.
And what is the way to be in the middle? The way to be in the middle is to be in the
world but not to be of it. To be in the middle means to live in the world but not to
allow the world to live in you. To be exactly in the middle and to be balanced means
you are a witness to all that happens to you. Witnessing is the only foundation for a
real authentic religion. Whatsoever is, has to be witnessed -- joyfully, ecstatically.
Nothing has to be denied and rejected. All denial, all rejection, will keep you in limits
and you will remain in conflict. Everything has to be accepted as it is.
And you have to be a watcher. Pleasure comes -- watch. Pain comes -- watch. Neither
be disturbed by pleasure nor be disturbed by pain. Let your calm remain unperturbed.
Let your silence, your tranquillity, remain undisturbed. Pain will come and go and
pleasure will come and go. Success will come and go and failure will come and go.
And soon you will come to understand the point that it is only you who remains. That
is eternal. This witnessing is eternal.
The contents that flow in the consciousness are temporary. One moment they are there,
another moment they are gone. Don't be worried about them; don't be either in favour
of them or against them. Don't try to possess them, don't hold onto them, because they
are going to go. They have to go. It is the very nature of things that they cannot be
permanent.
Something pleasant is happening. It cannot be permanent. It will have to go. And
following it, something unpleasant is already getting ready to happen. It is the rhythm
of life -- day and night, life and death, summer and winter. The wheel goes on moving.
Don't hold on and don't try to make something very, very permanent. It is not possible.
The more you try, the more frustrated you will become, because it cannot be done.
And when it cannot be done, you feel defeated. You feel defeated because you have
not understood one simple thing: nothing can be static. Life is a flux. Only one thing
is eternally there and that is your consciousness, that innermost watcher.
Sufis call it 'the watcher on the hills'. The valleys go on changing but the watcher
remains on the top of the hill. Sometimes the valley is dark and sometimes the valley
is light and sometimes there is dancing and singing and sometimes there is weeping
and crying -- and the watcher sits on the hill-top and just goes on watching.
By and by the content of consciousness does not matter Only consciousness becomes
significant. That is the essential foundation of all true religion. And this is the
understanding of the Sufis.
Before we enter into this small parable today. Let me tell you that there are four ways
to approach truth, to be connected with truth.
The first is known in the East as KARMA yoga -- the way of action. Man has three
dimensions in him: action, knowing, feeling. So three ways use these three directions:
action, knowing feeling. You can act, and you can act with total absorption, and you
can offer your act to God. You can act without becoming a doer. That is the first way
-- KARMA yoga: being in action without being a doer. You let God do. You let God
be in you. You efface yourself.
In this, the path of action, consciousness changes the content. These two things have
to be understood: consciousness and content. This is all that your life consists of.
There is something which is the knower in you and something which is the known.
For example, you are listening to me. Now two things are there: whatsoever I am
saying will be the content, and whatsoever you are inside, listening, watching, that is
the consciousness. You are looking at me. Then my figure in your eyes is the content
and you, who are looking at that figure in the eye, are consciousness -- the object and
the subject.
On the path of action, consciousness changes the content That is what action is. You
see a rock. Somebody may stumble upon it -- because it is getting dark, night is
falling. so you remove the rock from the path. This is action. What have you done?
Consciousness has changed the content.
On the path of action, content is important and has to be changed. If somebody is ill
and you go and serve him and you give him medicine, you are changing the content.
If somebody has fallen in the river and is drowning, you jump in and you save him
from drowning. You have changed the content.
Action is content-directed. Action is will -- something has to be done. Of course, if the
will remains ego-oriented, then you will not be religious. You will be a great doer, but
not religious. And your path will be of action but not towards God. When you allow
God to become your will, when you say, 'Let thy will be mine,' when you surrender
your will to the feet of god and his will starts flowing through you, then it is the path
of action -- KARMA yoga.
The goal of KARMA yoga is freedom, moksha -- to change the contents so much that
nothing antagonistic is left there, nothing harmful is left there; to change the content
according to your heart's desire, so that you can be free of limitations. This is the path
of Jainism, yoga, and all action-oriented philosophies.
The second path is the path of knowledge, knowing -- GYANA yoga. On the second
path consciousness is changed by the content. On the first, content is changed by
consciousness; on the second it is just the reverse -- consciousness is changed by the
content.
On the path of knowledge you simply try to see what is the case -- whatsoever it is.
That's what Krishnamurti goes on teaching. That is the purest path of knowing. There
is nothing to be done. You have just to attain to clarity, to see what is the case. You
have just to see that which is. You are not to do anything. You have simply to drop
your prejudices and you have to drop your concepts, notions, which can interfere with
reality, which can interpret reality, which can colour reality. You have to drop all that
you carry in your mind as A PRIORI notions -- and then let the reality be there.
Whatsoever it is, you just see it. And that changes you.
To know the real is to be transformed. Knowing the real as the real, you cannot act in
any other way than the way of reality. Once you have known the reality, reality starts
changing you. Consciousness is changed by the content.
The goal of the path of knowledge is truth. The goal of KARMA yoga, the path of
action or will, was freedom. The goal of the path of knowing -- Vedanta, Hinduism,
Sankhya, and other paths of knowing, Ashtavakra, Krishnamurti -- is truth,
BRAHMAN. Thou art that. Let that be revealed, then you become that. Once you
know that, you become that. By knowing God, one becomes God. Thou art that -- that
is the most essential phenomenon on the second path.
The third is BHAKTI yoga -- the way of feeling. Love is the goal. Consciousness
changes the content and the content changes consciousness. The change is mutual.
The lover changes the beloved, the beloved changes the lover. On the path of will,
consciousness changes content, on the path of knowing, content changes
consciousness; on the path of feeling, both interact, both affect each other. The change
is mutual. That's why the path of feeling is more whole. The first path is half, the
second path also half, but the path of love is more round, more whole, because it has
both in it.
Vaishnavas, Christianity, Islam, and other paths; Ramanuja, Vallabha, and other
devotees -- they say that subject and object are not separate. So if one changes the
other, then something will remain unbalanced. Let both change each other. Let both
meet and merge into each other, let there be a unity. As man and woman meet and
merge into each other, let there be a unity. As man and woman meet and there is great
joy, let there be an orgasm between consciousness and content, between you and
reality, between that and thou. Let it not be only a knowing, let it not be only partial -let it be total.
These are the three ordinary paths. Sufism is the fourth. One of the greatest Sufis of
this age was George Gurdjieff. His disciple, P. D. Ouspensky, has written a book
called THE FOURTH WAY. It is very symbolic.
What is this fourth way? If it is neither of action, nor of knowing, nor of feeling -because these are the three faculties -- then what is this fourth way? The fourth way is
the way of transcendence. In India this is called RAJA yoga -- the royal path, the
fourth way. Neither consciousness changes the content, nor the content changes
consciousness. Nothing changes nothing. All is as it is with no change. Content is
there, consciousness is here, and no change is happening. No effort to change is there.
This is what I mean by being. With all the three paths something remains in the mind
that has to be done. With the fourth, all becoming disappears. You simply accept
whatsoever is. In that acceptance is transcendence. In that very acceptance you go
beyond. You remain just a witness. You are no longer doing anything here, you are
just-being here.
A goal is not possible with the fourth way. There is no goal. With the first, the goal is
freedom; with the second, truth; with the third, love. With the fourth there is no goal.
Zen and Sufism belong to the fourth. That's why Zen people say 'the pathless path, the
gateless gate' -- because there is no goal. The goal-less goal. We are not going
anywhere. We are not striving for anything. All that is needed is already here. It has
been here all along. You have just to be silent and see. There is no need to change
anything. With the fourth, the myth of change disappears.
And when there is no need to change, joy explodes -- because the energy that gets
involved in changing things is no longer involved anywhere; it is released. That
released energy is what is called joy.
Sometimes it happens to you too, unknowingly. Sometimes sitting alone, doing
nothing, you feel something happen. You cannot believe what it is. You cannot even
trust what it is. It is so incredibly new, so unknown. It happens to everybody -- in rare
moments, for no reason at all. You cannot figure it out; you cannot reckon why it has
happened.
You have been Lying in your bathtub and suddenly something happens. The mind is
not rushing in its usual way; the body is relaxed in the hot water. You are not doing
anything; you are just being there. suddenly it comes -- the silence4 of the house, the
birds singing outside, the children playing in the street. All is there as it has been, but
with a new quality. There is great restfulness, a relaxation. Something in you is no
longer striving for anything. You are not goal-oriented, you are just herenow.
If you start thinking about what it is, you miss it immediately. If you start trying to get
hold of it again, you will never get hold of it again. It comes when it comes. It comes
when the right situation is there. But you cannot create that right situation. If you try
to create it, you will fall into one of the first three ways. If you try to change the
content, you will become a follower of the path of action. If you try to change your
consciousness through the content, you will become a follower of the second path -the path of knowledge. If you try to make both meet and mingle and merge, then you
will become a follower of the third path.
But if you don't do anything -- not willing, not knowing, not feeling -- if you just relax,
then there is witnessing. Witnessing is not knowing; witnessing is totally different. In
fact, it cannot be said that you are witnessing. You are not doing anything -- not even
witnessing. You are just there. Things are happening. Suddenly a bird starts singing
outside and you hear it -- because you are there, you hear it. There is no effort to hear
it, there is no deliberate concentration for it.
Just the other day I came across a Shankhya sutra of immense beauty: DHYANAM
NIRVISHAYAM MANAH -- that's how Shankhya sutras define DHYANA.
Meditation is mind without thoughts, without feelings, without will. Meditation is
consciousness without any striving. DHYANAM NIRVISHAYAM MANAH. There is
no longing for any object. You are not striving for anything. Then you are in
DHYANA, then you are in meditation. You are not doing anything; on no plane are
you doing anything. All doing has simply disappeared. there is utter silence inside you,
and absolute rest.
Let this word 'rest' be remembered by you. Relaxation. You cannot do it, remember.
How can you do it? If you do it you cannot relax, because then relaxation becomes a
goal and you become a doer. You can only understand it. You can only allow it to
happen; you cannot do it, you cannot force it. It has nothing to do with your doing.
You can only understand how it happens and you can remain in that understanding.
And it comes.
DHYANAM NIRVISHAYAM MANAH. When the mind is, with no desire, no object,
no goal, not going anywhere, then how can it be tense? It is not a state of
concentration . It is not concentration at all because concentration will need striving;
concentration is a kind of tension. It is not even attention, because attention is also a
kind of tension.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines the word 'meditation' as concentration. That is
absolutely wrong. Meditation is not concentration. Concentration means mind striving,
forcing, willing, trying to do something. Putting one's whole energy into one direction
-- that's what concentration means. Meditation means you are not putting your energy
into any direction; it is simply overflowing. It is not going in any particular direction,
it is simply overflowing like a fragrance, a fragrance overflowing from a flower,
unaddressed -- neither to the north nor to the south. It is not going anywhere, or, it is
going everywhere. Wherever the winds will take it, it is ready to go. It is utterly
relaxed.
This moment happens sometimes to you. I would like you to remember that it is not
something rare that happens only to religious people. It happens in ordinary life too
but you don't take note of it. You are afraid of it.
Just a few days ago, I received a letter from a woman. She had been here, then she
went home. For six months she was trying and trying to meditate and it did not
happen according to her idea of meditation. She must have had some desire about
what it should be like. She must have had some expectations, and it was not
happening.
She has written a letter to say that one day she was just sitting in the room. There was
nothing to do. The husband had gone to the office; the children had gone to school;
the house was empty. She was just sitting, not doing anything, there was no desire to
do. She was just sitting in the chair with closed eyes -- and it happened. It was
suddenly there, with all its benedictions. But she became frightened. She became
frightened because when it happened suddenly a fear came to her -- because it was
there, meditation was there, but she was not there. That became a great fear and she
simply pulled herself out of it. It felt as if she was disappearing.
Yes, it happens. Your ego cannot exist there. Your ego is not possible there. Your ego
is nothing but all your tensions together. Your ego is nothing but a bundle of past
tensions, of present tensions, and of future tensions. When you are non-tense, the ego
simply falls to the ground in pieces.
She became afraid. For six months she had been trying to meditate and nothing was
happening, and then one day it happened. It came while she was completely unaware
of it. She was taken aback. It was there. And she had been provoking it and desiring
and asking and praying, and it had not come. And then it came. But she missed. It was
there but she became frightened. It was too much. She felt as if she might disappear
into it and might not be able to come out of it. She pulled herself out of it. Now she
writes that she is crying and weeping, and wants it back.
Now this wanting it back won't help -- because it came that day without any wanting.
Without any idea of what was going to happen, suddenly it came. It always comes like
sudden lightning.
This is the fourth way, that's why it is called RAJA yoga -- the royal path. The king is
not supposed to do anything. Servants do. The king is not supposed to do anything.
He simply sits on his throne and things happen. There are so many people to do it.
That's why it is called RAJA yoga -- the path of the king. The other three are ordinary;
the fourth is really exceptional. The king is not expected to do anything; he simply sits
there relaxed. That's what we mean by one who is a king. Doing has disappeared,
knowing has disappeared, feeling has disappeared -- the king is utterly relaxed. In that
relaxation it happens.
Sufi and Zen are RAJA yogas -- the royal paths. Neither consciousness changes the
content nor the content changes consciousness. This is the fundamental principle:
nothing changes, there is no change happening. Things are. The flower is there and
you are there. You don't change the flower and the flower does not change you. Both
exist together. It is existence with no motive.
Zen people call it nirvana, the goal, the no-goal -- nirvana. One simply ceases to be.
the word 'nirvana' is beautiful. It means: as if somebody has blown out a candle. Just a
few minutes before it was there, the lamp was burning bright, and then you blew it out.
Now the flame has disappeared into the infinity. It has become part of the cosmos.
You cannot find it. You cannot trace where it has gone, where it is. It has simply
disappeared.
There is a Sufi parable.
A Sufi mystic was entering a village and he came across a small boy who was
carrying a lit candle. The boy was going to the mosque. The night was coming and the
boy was going to the mosque to put the candle there -- as an act of worship.
The mystic saw the boy, the innocent boy, his face lighted by the light of the candle.
The mystiC asked the boy, 'Have you yourself lighted the candle?' And the boy said,
'Yes, sir.'
The mystic jokingly asked, 'Then you must have seen from where the flame comes.
Can you tell me from where the flame comes?' The boy laughed and blew out the
candle and said, 'Now you have seen it going. Can you tell me where it has gone?'
Nobody knows from where it comes and nobody knows to where it goes. It comes out
of nothingness or out of all -- which means the same -- and it goes back into
nothingness or into the all -- which is the same. That is nirvana.
Sufis have the word for it -- FANA. It means exactly the same. One is utterly lost.
There is no need to do anything on the path of will or on the path of knowledge or on
the path of feeling. Nothing is needed to be done -- because if you do something you
will remain, you will persist a little. Something of the ego may linger on. No change,
no improvement, no effort to make you better is needed -- just be.
Mohammed says: 'Be in this world as a stranger or as a passer-by.' Be in this world
but don't be of it. Be in this world but don't allow the world to be in you. 'Be for this
world as if thou were to live a thousand years, and for the next as it thou were to die
tomorrow.' Live this moment as if you are going to live forever and yet be mindful
that the next moment may not come. So live totally, and yet remain a witness. Be
involved in it, but still keep yourself like a watcher on the hill.
That is what Junaid was doing.
Now this story.
THE SUFI ANCIENT, JUNAID, TAUGHT BY DEMONSTRATION...
Sufis always teach by demonstration. There is no better way. So it always happens
that when outsiders come to a Sufi Master, they are always puzzled -- because they
cannot understand what is happening. They don't know the whole story. They only
take the fragment that is in front of their eyes. It may be a demonstration. It may be
something in which the disciples and the Master know what is going on.
Gurdjieff used to do that. And outsiders were always puzzled. And there are hundreds
of books written on Gurdjieff by outsiders. Naturally they are all against him, because
they don't know the whole story. It is only possible for art, insider to know the whole
story.
For example, if you had suddenly reached Gurdjieff, you might have been surprised.
He might have been shouting -- humiliating somebody, using abusive words. He was
a past master in using abusive words. And when he was in a rage, he was really in a
rage -- it was as if he was going to murder.
If you saw it, naturally you would wonder what kind of Master he was. He did not
seem to be at all enlightened -- because you have a certain idea about enlightenment:
that the Master will be such and such. He should fulfil your expectation. But Masters
don't exist to fulfil your expectations. They have something else far more important to
do than to go on fulfilling your expectations. They are not here for that kind of work.
They are not asking for your respect or for any respectability. They are not bothered
by public opinion; they are not asking for your vote. They are doing something which
is immense, which is possible to understand only when you are an insider.
The insider knows on whom Gurdjieff is throwing all kinds of abuse. He knows -- or
maybe in some moments he knows and in some moments he also misses. There are
some moments when you will feel, 'What kind of man is this? Why is he abusing me
so hard? What have I don?' You may have done a very small wrong, negligible, and he
is being mad out of all proportion -- as if you have committed a sin. Sometimes even
the insider may miss. But the insider will be able to remember. Gurdjieff has said,
'You have to be watchful. I will provoke you. I will provoke you in many ways, so
that you can lose your watchfulness.'
Now something is transpiring between Gurdjieff and his disciple. You as an outsider
will miss it. He is not in rage. The rage is just acting, and the disciple is being
provoked into being angry. If the disciple gets angry, he misses the point. He loses an
opportunity. If the disciple remains calm and quiet, watchful; does not allow the
content to change this consciousness; and does not try in any way to change Gurdjieff
and his behaviour -- that is consciousness trying to change the content.... The content
is there -- Gurdjieff is mad. So okay, Gurdjieff is mad. And one is there watching -neither the consciousness is affecting the content nor the content is affecting the
consciousness. And you cannot deceive Gurdjieff -- because a slight change in your
consciousness and your whole behaviour changes. Your face changes, your aura
changes, your energy pattern changes -- you are no longer the same person.
If the disciple can remain undisturbed, unperturbed, can remain as he was before
Gurdjieff started going into this rage, he has taken one step into the inner journey. He
has come closer to the Master.
But it will be difficult for people who come from the outside. If you had gone to
Gurdjieff.... It was a rare phenomenon. Every night he would invite all his disciples.
The whole community would gather together. And there would be eating and drinking
-- so much that anybody from the outside would think that these people were just mad.
What were they doing? And Gurdjieff would go on forcing people to eat and to drink.
He would force people to drink so much alcohol that you would think that this was an
epicurean phenomenon. What kind of religion was this? Just eat, drink, and be merry?
And that too was going to extremes. And Gurdjieff was very insistent about going on
drinking. He himself used to drink as much as a man could drink, but he was never
drunk. That was the whole point. He would tell the disciple to drink.
And there comes a point when you lose control. Immediately your reality comes up,
surfaces. You can never see the real person unless he is drunk. People have repressed
themselves so much that only alcohol can bring them up from their repressions. It was
one of the greatest experiments ever done by any Master.
In the East we know it has been done by tantricas down the ages, but Gurdjieff was
the first man to do it in the West. Whenever he saw that a disciple had drunk too much
and had come to his reality -- that now he was no longer the same person that he was
pretending to be -- then he would watch. Now he could be helpful. Now he knew your
unconscious. What psycho-analysis does in years, he did in one day. Psychoanalysis
goes on poking you to bring your unconscious up. The psychoanalyst will sit, day in
and day out, by the side of the couch and listen to all kinds of nonsense and rubbish,
for years -- just to help you to go on throwing out rubbish. By and by the real will
start-coming up. When the top rubbish is thrown out, then the inner rubbish-will start
coming up. But it takes years.
Gurdjieff used to do it in a master-stroke, in a single day. The first day the disciple
was there, the first initiation would be through alcohol. The Master wants to know the
unconscious immediately because there the real work is to be done. He does not want
to waste time with the conscious personality. That is a -mask. Once he has known,
then there will be no need. But he will take you into deep drunkenness.
Now, if somebody comes from the outside -- the so-called religious people -- they will
be puzzled, very puzzled. What is happening! If somebody comes who has been
tasting. Gurdjieff will give him too much to eat, and if somebody comes who has been
eating too much, he will put him on a fast. He will disturb your old patterns, because
when patterns are disturbed, your reality comes up. It is like changing gears. When
you change one gear to another, just in the middle you have to pass through the
neutral.
If a man -- for example, a Jaina -- has never eaten meat in his whole life and he goes
to Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff will force him to eat meat. This is destroying his whole
personality. For fifty years he has not eaten, neVer touched, maybe has never seen,
meat. Now his whole personality will revolt. He will feel nauseous. The very idea
may be nauseous.
My own grandmother, when she was alive, would not even allow tomatoes in the
house because they looked like meat. That was her idea. Tomatoes -- such innocent
people! They were not allowed in the home.
So if a person who has not even eaten tomatoes is forced to eat meat, you can
understand what turmoil the Master is throwing him into. He is putting him
upside-down. it will really be a destruction of all his patterns. He will vomit, he will
fall ill, he may have fevers, he may have nightmares -- but this will destroy all his
learned patterns and he will become again a child. And from there work can start.
If a man has been eating meat, drinking, Gurdjieff will put him on vegetable food. He
will tell him not to drink at all. He will make him a vegetarian, a teetotaller -- he will
force him to be as holy as possible. The technique is the same -- to disturb the past, to
put things upside-down so that the facade no longer functions and the mask can be
removed and the reality can be seen.
A Master has to put his disciples into their childhood again because from there they
have been distracted. Somebody has become a Mohammedan, somebody has become
a Hindu, somebody has become a Christian -- from that moment they have been
distracted. The Master has to put them back into their childhood so another kind of
life, another kind of reality, starts growing.
THE SUFI ANCIENT, JUNAID, TAUGHT BY DEMONSTRATION, THROUGH A
METHOD IN WHICH HE ACTUALLY LIVED THE PART WHICH HE WAS
TRYING TO ILLUSTRATE. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE....
He will live the part that he is going to illustrate. But how can an outsider know it -know what is going on? It is a drama. It is a psychodrama. Only the people who are
inside, who know the inside information -- what is going on -- will be able to see.
Even they may miss many times. Suspicion will arise even in them.
For example, a naked woman is dancing. There are wine flasks. Wine is being poured
into glasses, is handed over to people. There is luxury all around. There is dancing
and music -- a kind of orgy is going on. And Junaid is sitting just in the middle of it -the master of the ceremony.
You see it. And you have an idea of how a Master should be. It is very rare to find a
man who does not come with any idea. It is natural. It can be forgiven. Everybody
comes with an idea. If a Christian comes to me, he has the idea of Christ. He starts
looking at me -- am I behaving like Christ or not? If he feels I am not, then I cannot
be anything. A Jaina comes; he has the idea of Mahavira. He looks; he is expecting me
to behave like a Mahavira. I am neither Christ, nor Mahavira, nor Buddha -- I am just
myself. I exist in my own right. I have no borrowed authority; my authority is my
own. But people come with ideas. They have been trained. So it becomes very
difficult. They look from the prejudices, hidden behind the prejudices. If I fulfil their
prejudice, then it is okay; if I don't, then they will think that this is not the Master, this
is not the true Master. They will have to go somewhere else.
And remember, no true Master has ever fulfilled anybody's desire. He cannot, if he
wants to help you. He has to annoy you, he has to shock you. He has to be shocking
because his whole work is to shock you into awareness.
ONCE HE WAS FOUND BY A NUMBER OF SEEKERS SITTING
SURROUNDED BY EVERY IMAGINABLE LUXURY.
THESE PEOPLE LEFT HIS PRESENCE AND SOUGHT THE HOUSE OF A MOST
AUSTERE AND ASCETIC HOLY MAN, WHOSE SURROUNDINGS WERE SO
PLAIN THAT HE HAD NOTHING BUT A MAT AND A JUG OF WATER.
Now Junaid is one of the greatest Sufi Masters. An ordinary man will fulfil your
desire -- in fact, only an ordinary man will fulfil your desire, he will pretend to be
whatsoever you can expect him to be -- but no real man is going to be defined by you.
He remains indefinable. No real man can be put into categories. He remains
uncategorised. A real man is like mercury -- you cannot hold him in tight
compartments. A real man is freedom. If you want to see the real Master, you will
have to put all your notions aside.
And how can you have the right notion? You don't even know who you are, and you
pretend to know what a Master should be! You are completely oblivious of your own
reality and you want to believe that you can know the ultimate reality or the ultimate
expression of reality. It is pretentious, and it is dangerous, and only you will be the
loser. If you want to seek the real Master, you will have to drop all expectations. You
will have to go nude, naked. You will have to go without any mind -- only then is
there any possibility of any contact.
Just the other night a young man took sannyas. I was watching him. He was very
closed. I was watching him. Whatsoever I said to him -- and I talked to him for almost
half an hour -- was not heard by him. I was watching. His ears were closed. His mind
was very much clouded. And then finally I asked, 'Have you something to say to me?'
He said, 'Yes, I am a Christian, how can I have two names? I have been given a
Christian name, I have been initiated into Christianity. And you are giving me another
name. Now there will be difficulty.'
I was watching -- he had not heard a single word. I asked him, 'If you really know that
you are growing, if you know that you are silent, happy, blissful, if by being a
Christian you are contented, then there is no need to be a sannyasin. You are already a
sannyasin. Why have you come here then? For what? If things are going perfectly
well wherever you are, be there with all my blessings. Why have you come for
sannyas? Nobody has asked you. You have come on your own. You have asked me to
initiate you and now you bring a problem. If you are not growing, if yoU are not
happy where you are, then drop the past.'
Now this young man is carrying a notion. He thinks he is a Christian. How can you be
a Christian if you have not contacted Christ? The so-called priest in the church cannot
make you a Christian. Only when you partake of Christ do you become a Christian.
The ordinary priest himself is not a Christian -- what to say about the ordinary man?
Even the Vatican pope is not a Christian. He cannot be -- because to be a Christian
does not mean to belong to a church, it means to enter into Christ-consciousness.
Jesus is not the only Christ. Buddha is also a Christ, so is Mohammed, so is Junaid, so
is Kabir and so is Nanak. Christ is a state just as Buddha is a state. It is the same thing;
it is the same state. These two names indicate the same state. Jainas call it the state of
Jina, the conqueror -- because they follow the path of will. Buddhists call it the state
of Buddha: the state of awakening, awareness, witnessing. They follow the fourth
path. Christ is a state, the ultimate state -- when you are no longer a man but you
become God, when you transcend humanity, when you surpass humanity.
But you can become a Christian only if yoU partake of a Christ -- otherwise your
Christianity will be false and your false Christianity will prevent you from making
contact with any living Christ. But people come with their minds. It can be
understood, it can be forgiven, but forgiving does not mean that you have to cling to it.
It has to be dropped.
Now this young man can become Christian for the first time -- if he enters me and
allows me to enter him. For the first time he has come around a Christ-consciousness,
but he is afraid. He is afraid because he is a Christian and naturally he cannot think of
me as Christ because he has an idea of Christ. If he sees me crucified only then will
he believe -- but then it will be too late.
And I am not going to repeat the drama! Once, it is good twice, it is boring!
Now these seekers came to Junaid. Junaid was sitting surrounded by every imaginable
luxury. They must have interpreted. They must have been shocked and annoyed. What
kind of Master is he?
Just the other day Maitreya brought me a Hindi magazine. They have written an
article against me as the cover story. And on the cover page the title is: WHAT KIND
OF GOD? Naturally, they have a certain idea -- what kind of God? I am not Rama, I
am not Krishna, I am not Mahavira -- so what kind God am I? And these are the same
people who, when Mahavira was there, were asking, 'What kind of God?' -- because
he was not Rama and he was not Krishna. And these are the sane people who, when
Krishna was there, were asking, 'What kind of God?' -- because he was not Rama.
These are the same people who go on asking again and again. Rama is never repeated.
Nothing is ever repeated. This existence is so unique and so beautiful.
So if you want to make contact with reality, you will have to drop notions. We all
have notions.
The Sunday-school teacher asked her class to learn an appropriate phrase from the
Bible and recite it as they were putting their pennies in the collection box.
On the following Sunday little Lucas came up with, 'It is more blessed to give than to
receive,' as he dropped his penny in the box.
Richard's quotation was, 'The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.' This too was well
received.
And so on down the line to little Lloyd. As he grudgingly made his contribution, he
mumbled, 'A fool and his money are soon parted.'
Now all three boys had looked in the Bible, in the same Bible, but they had found
three different quotes. When you look, you always find something that reflects you.
Father Duffy and Rabbi Muchnik were chattering at a town meeting.
'Could I ask you a question?' enquired Father Duffy.
'Of course,' said Rabbi Muchnik.
'It has always been my understanding that the apostles were Jews. Isn't that correct?'
'Absolutely right!' replied the Rabbi.
'Then how the deuce did the Jews let go of a good thing like the Catholic Church and
let the Italians grab it?'
Now that is a relevant question. How did the Jews allow such a beautiful business to
be lost? The richest business in the world is the Catholic Church. The question is
relevant -- how did the Jews allow it to be lost? How did they miss it? This is not very
Jewish.
Our minds work continuously.
In a small class the teacher asked, 'Who is the greatest man in the world?'
One boy said, 'Abraham Lincoln.'
Another boy said, 'Mahatma Gandhi.'
Another boy said, 'Washington.'
Another boy said, 'Karl Marx.'
And so on and so forth.
And then came the little Jewish boy who said, 'Jesus Christ.'
The teacher was surprised and said, 'Aren't you a Jew? How come?'
The little boy said, 'In my heart of hearts I know that the greatest man in the world is
Moses -- but business is business.'
Whenever you interpret something, rather than thinking that it is objective, always
remember it is a reflection of your mind.
Now these seekers were very puzzled at seeing the luxury and Junaid sitting there.
These people must have been very, very attached to things; these people must have
been very, very desirous of having, possessing; these people must have been very,
very materialistic. Seeing Junaid surrounded by all these luxuries, a deep jealousy
must have arisen in them which was not visible to them. and whenever people are
very indulgent they have a religious idea that people who are indulgent are not
religious. How can they be religious? They are indulgent. So people who are religious
must be far away from all kinds of indulgence. If you are too much of a money
maniac, then you will have an idea that the real man of God will not have any desire
for money.
This has to be understood. You always put the opposite higher than you because you
condemn yourself utterly. You know that you are mad about money, so immediately
the idea comes, 'So he is just like me. He is nothing special. He is just like me.' If you
are too sexual, if your mind is continuously fantasising about sex and you see Junaid
sitting with a beautiful woman, immediately Junaid is condemned in your mind. So he
is just like you. This is what you would like to do -- so what is the point of making
this man your Master?
People go on searching for the opposite. People only respect the opposite. This has to
be understood -- this tendency. People are attracted by the opposite but the opposite
cannot change you -- because the attraction of the opposite is a very natural law. Man
is attracted to woman; woman is attracted to man. The poor is attracted to the rich and
-- you will be surprised -- the rich is attracted to the poor. Rich people always think
that the poor are enjoying great things -- they have beautiful sleep, they have good
appetite. Rich people always think that there is great )oy in living in nature -- in living
in a hut, in a cottage. Rich people always think that in small villages far away there is
joy and bliss. In great cities how can there be joy? They live in the great cities and
they hanker for the village.
And ask the villager. He hankers for Bombay, New York London. His hankering is to
reach the biggest city possible. His hankering is to live in a big skyscraper. He wants
all that the rich people have.
Remember, rich people are interested in the poor -- so whenever they see an
enlightened person living in poverty their heads bow down. They say, 'This is the right
thing.' If they see a JANAK, a rich man, enlightened, they cannot believe it. It is
impossible for them. Their understanding becomes a barrier.
Now an enlightened person has no bondage. He can live in poverty if he feels this is
going to help his disciples; he can live in riches if he feels this is going to help his
disciples. His whole life is a teaching. It is a deliberate device. It is a situation. It
depends on him what he chooses. He has no bondage to anything. And he can change
from one to another. He is utterly free.
They thought that this was not the right man. They left Junaid. They missed a great
opportunity.
THESE PEOPLE LEFT HIS PRESENCE AND SOUGHT THE HOUSE OF A MOST
AUSTERE AND ASCETIC HOLY MAN, WHOSE SURROUNDINGS WERE SO
PLAIN THAT HE HAD NOTHING BUT A MAT AND A JUG OF WATER.
They must have thought that this was the right man. They were all worldly people.
Seeing Junaid surrounded by worldly luxuries they thought that he was just like them.
Look into your so-called religious people and see who they respect -- you will be
surprised. For example, in India, the Jainas are amongst the richest people. They are
the Jews of India. They have all kinds of luxuries. It is a small community but it has
one of the biggest portions of this country's wealth. See their saints. They are naked;
they don't possess anything. This is rare. The community is rich and the community
worships somebody who is absolutely naked, possesses nothing. It looks strange logic
but it is not. The opposite is attractive.
The rich people can only worship the poor. They live in luxury; they can only worship
somebody who lives in austerity. If you want Jainas to be your disciples, you will
have to become a a masochist. You will have to torture yourself. The more elan and
thin you become -- just bones -- the more and more respect will be coming to you.
You will have to commit slow suicide. The more dead you are, the more people will
be coming to worship you.
And this is strange! These people are living wealthy, rich lives. But the opposite
attracts. It is always the opposite that attracts.
Another example.... Mohammedans are poor people in this country. When their
religious festival days come, they will purchase new clothes, new perfume. They will
prepare good food for themselves and invite friends. When the Mohammedans'
religious function comes, they will wear new clothes because that is the only time
they purchase or they can purchase. Then the whole year they will use the same
clothes. And they will prepare good sweets. delicious foods, invite people. Those days
will be of great joy. And they will spend money. They cannot afford to spend money
the whole year round -- only once or twice in a year.
Now the Jainas, the richest community in India, when their religious festival days
come, they fast. They don't eat at all! The whole year round they eat too much. Jainas
are the only people in India who go on diets. They eat too much. They are the only
people who are interested in naturopathy. And when their religious days come, they
fast. On their religious days, they live very saintly lives. They will not use their
ordinary clothes, they will use just white clothes..They will look saintly. They will go
in saintly robes to their temples. This is only for ten days -- the whole year round they
are just the opposite.
What is happening? The opposite attracts. Remember always that just because
something is opposite to you, it does not mean it is true. It may be opposite to you, but
it may not be opposite at all. Or the person who is being opposite to you, may just be
trying to attract your respect. It is very easy to gain respect by just becoming opposite
to people.
And people very, very much respect those who are maso-chistic. They think this is
great. They are torturing themselves for the other world. Their sacrifice is great. It is
nothing! It is simply neurosis! Those people are ill. They need psychiatric treatment -because it is natural to be joyous, to be healthy, to be hungry, to eat. It is natural to
live comfortably. It is unnatural to create discomfort. It is very normal to find a way of
life which is less and less inconvenient. A person who seeks inconvenience is
somehow pathological.
So they left the presence of Junaid and they came to a very, very ascetic and austere
man WHOSE SURROUNDINGS WERE SO PLAIN THAT HE HAD NOTHING
BUT A MAT AND A JUG OF WATER. It appealed to them.
THE SPOKESMAN OF THE SEEKERS SAID, 'YOUR SIMPLE MANNERS AND
AUSTERE ENVIRONMENT ARE MUCH MORE TO OUR LIKING THAN THE
GARISH AND SHOCKING EXCESSES OF JUNAID, WHO SEEMS TO HAVE
TURNED HIS BACK UPON THE PATH OF TRUTH.'
-- as if they knew what truth was and what the path of truth was; as if they knew what
was transpiring there between Junaid and his disciples; as if they knew that it was a
psychodrama. They knew nothing. From the very outside they judged. Never judge
anything from the outside.
And when you go inside, the deeper you go, the more totally different will be the
vision. Then you will see the real; then you will see what reality is. Never watch it
from the outside.
It happens here every day. People come to watch. They see you dancing, singing, and
they say, 'What is this? Dancing and singing? How is dancing and singing related to
religion?' They have a certain idea that religion means that somebody should be
sitting under a tree with closed eyes, in a yoga posture. If people see you all sitting
here under trees with closed eyes in yoga postures, then we will be mobbed. Then the
whole country will start rushing here. So many saints!
But I prevent them. I have my own devices -- simple devices! If they see a man and
woman holding hands, they escape! This is not the place. This is what they always
wanted to do and have not. They feel jealous -- 'This can't be a religious place. These
people are just living in the world, being very worldly -- laughing, dancing, singing,
loving.' This is not their idea of religion.
But they don't know what is transpiring here. It is possible that a man who is sitting
under a tree with closed eyes in a yoga posture will be a murderer.
It happened once....
A man murdered somebody and escaped. The police followed him and were coming
closer and closer. Then the murderer came to a river which was flooded. He was
puzzled because he did not know how to swim and it was dangerous to go into the
river.Looking around he saw a man, a saint, sitting under a tree. He had rubbed ashes
on his body. So he threw his clothes in the river, became naked, rubbed ashes on his
body, and sat under the tree. The police officers came and looked at these two great
ascetic saints. They touched their feet -- in India that's how things are -- they touched
their feet. The murderer laughed inside. This was a miracle! Just a few minutes ago
they were after him. If he had been caught he would have been sentenced to death.
But now they became his followers. They started coming to him for satsanga, to sit by
his side. And in India every stupid person knows things about spirituality, so he
started talking about spirituality. By and by greater officers came. Finally the king
came. and when the king touched his feet he could not believe what was happening.
But this happens. You look only at the posture, you look only at the outside. It is
possible that when people are dancing they may be in a state of utter silence. The
music is outside, the noise is outside, their bodies are moVing, there is great
movement, but there may be a point deep inside which is not moving at all. In fact, to
attain to that point which is not moving, movement is the best background. When
everything is moving around you, the wheel is moving fast, just at the centre of it -the centre of the cyclone -- nothing is moving.
You may see a man sitting silently with closed eyes and he may be fantasising about
women. And it is possible that a man may be holding the hand of his woman and may
not be sexual at all in that moment. But that is something inner. In fact, as I see reality,
to be with a loving woman and to be with a loving man is the best way to get beyond
sexuality. If you love, sex disappears. If you have enjoyed, penetrated, got involved
with love energy, sooner or later you will find that sex disappears. If you want to
remain sexual, starve yourself of sex -- and you will remain sexual. And your mind
will go on fantasising.
You can just try a small experiment. If you eat well -- I'm not saying too much, just
the right amount, what Bud&a calls SAMYAK AHAR, right food, whatsoever is
needed by your body -- you can forget about food. If you fast one day, you will think
about food the whole day. And you will fantasise. Fantasy comes out of unlived
experiences. Your so-called saints sitting under trees in austerity may be just the
opposite. Deep inside they may be fantasising about all kinds of things, they may be
fighting with them.
I am creating a totally different kind of situation -- where you are allowed to be
natural so you can see everything that your mind wants to see. Then you can go
beyond.
That was the situation -- but they missed. That's what was happening there. Junaid
was sitting in luxury with his disciples, creating a situation in which they could
become very, very silent and witness.
'YOUR SIMPLE MANNERS,' they said to the ascetic, 'AND AUSTERE
ENVIRONMENT ARE MUCH MORE TO OUR LIKING THAN THE GARISH
AND SHOCKING EXCESSES OF JUNAID, WHO SEEMS TO HAVE TURNED
HIS BACK UPON THE PATH OF TRUTH.'
THE ASCETIC HEAVED A GREAT SIGH AND STARTED TO WEEP.
The ascetic knew far better about his own inside. He must have been a sincere man.
Otherwise it is very difficult when people are respecting and worshipping you to say,
'No, you are wrong.' He must have been a sincere man.
'MY DEAR FRIENDS, SHALLOWLY INFECTED BY THE OUTWARD SIGNS
WHICH BESET MAN AT EVERY TURN,' HE SAID, 'KNOW THIS, AND CEASE
TO BE UNFORTUNATES! THE GREAT JUNAID IS SURROUNDED AT THIS
MOMENT BY LUXURY BECAUSE HE IS IMPERVIOUS TO LUXURY. AND I
AM SURROUNDED BY SIMPLICITY, BECAUSE I AM IMPERVIOUS TO
SIMPLICITY.'
He said something tremendously meaningful, tremendously significant -- 'Know this.
Don't be befooled by shallow, outward signs, otherwise you will remain always
unfortunate. You will miss the real person because the real will not in any way fulfil
your expectations. He has no obligation to fulfil your expectations. The unreal and the
pseudo will always be ready to fulfil your expectations, and you will fall into the trap
of the unreal. And you will remain unfortunate.'
He said, 'Know this, and cease to be unfortunate. Know one thing: that the outward is
not a sign for the inward.' If you want to see the inward, you have to see it directly,
immediately. You are not to see from the outward signs.
'THE GREAT JUNAID IS SURROUNDED AT THIS MOMENT BY LUXURY
BECAUSE HE IS IMPERVIOUS TO LUXURY.'
He can be surrounded by luxury because he can remain beyond. He is impervious to it.
There is no passage inside his being for luxury to enter and affect him. He is a
watcher on the hills. He is there and yet not there. Luxury is surrounding him but he is
not surrounded by luxury. That's why he is sitting there.
'And as far as I am concerned,' the ascetic said, 'I am surrounded by simplicity
because I am afraid of luxury. I am still weak. I am still desirous. I am pretending to
be simple. Junaid IS simple. He can afford to be surrounded by luxury because he is
simple. He knows his simplicity cannot be destroyed and corrupted by anything. He is
so beyond the material that it does not matter. The material matters no more. He can
be in the marketplace and yet be in his deep meditation. I cannot afford that because I
am not impervious to luxury. On the contrary, I am impervious to simplicity. Although
simplicity is all around me it is not entering me. There is no passage.'
The man must have been an authentic, honest man. Of course, he was still moving in
the wrong direction, but he was not a fake. He was moving in the wrong direction but
moving with sincerity. When you move in the wrong direction with sincerity, sooner
or later your sincerity will bring you to the right direction.
The story does not say anything else, but one thing is certain: this man understands
Junaid. How long can he remain away from Junaid? He will have to go to the Master.
And he understands his problem -- how long can he go on pretending by arranging
simplicity around him? One day or other he will get out of it, and he will start looking
for the right key. The right key is the fourth way.
The fourth way means content not affecting consciousness; consciousness not
affecting content. The world is there, I am here. There is no bridge. There is no
meeting. This is the path of Sufism, the path of Zen, the path of all essential religions.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #12
Chapter title: Different Breezes
7 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709070
ShortTitle:
SUFIS212
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 115 mins
The first question:
Question 1
I AM ALWAYS IN A HURRY AND ALWAYS WORRYING WHETHER I WILL BE
ABLE TO REACH OR NOT.
There is nowhere to reach and there is no one to reach. The whole idea of the goal is
illusory. Then you start living in the future, and the time is now, and the place is here.
Then you start living there -- somewhere far away. Then and there become more
important than now and here. That is the whole art of becoming miserable, that is the
whole basis of anguish, anxiety. It divides you; it divides you from your present
reality. The goal becomes more important and the moment becomes less important;
and the moment is real and the goal is just a dream. When you live for a dream you
will suffer, because the dream cannot be fulfilled. The dream can never become reality;
the dream will remain a dream. And you will be wasting precious life.
I am against all goals. God is not a goal, truth is not a goal. Truth is already here. If
you are also here, there will be a meeting. But you are not here. God is waiting here
for you and he never finds you here; you are somewhere else -- on some other planet,
in some other time, in some other place. It is not a question of you going to God, the
question is of you coming to God. It is not a question of going, it is a question of
coming back home. God is waiting for you here.
And once you have this idea.... Everybody has it, because down the ages only one
thing has been taught to man: that he has to become something, that he has to improve
upon himself, that he has to progress. This idea has gone into your bones, into your
very marrow. And it goes on driving you mad! It never leaves you at ease, it does not
allow you rest. It is not possible to relax with this mind. But you have always been
taught: push, rush, hurry, time is short and time is money. Push, hurry, do something
before time is lost. What do you want to do? Be! And being is possible only herenow.
Becoming is a poisoning idea. If you are in the trap of becoming you will remain
neurotic.
There is nothing really that you need. All is already given to you. That which you
want to become, you have been all along. Never for a single moment have you missed
it. Even though you are in misery, never for a single moment have you missed your
reality, your truth. How can you miss your reality and your truth?
I am not giving you a goal here, because all goal-orientation will make you more and
more unhappy. I am making an effort to take all goals, all ideals, away from you, and
to leave you herenow, in a totally different kind of space, a different presence. This
moment is beautiful, this moment is perfect.
You ask me: I AM ALWAYS IN A HURRY, AND ALWAYS WORRYING
WHETHER I WILL BE ABLE TO REACH OR NOT. Where do you want to go?
What do you want to reach? The seeker is the sought. To know the one who is hidden
inside you is all that is needed, and for that you need not go anywhere. For that you
need not even open your eyes. For that you need not even take a single step. That's
why Lao Tzu says, 'If you seek, you will miss. Don't seek, and you will find.'
Seeking is desiring. And once you start seeking you will go on going astray -- from
one goal to another goal. Sometimes it is money that is the goal, sometimes it is
power; then sometimes it is meditation and sometimes it is enlightenment and God
and nirvana. The name changes but the goal remains. And you remain tense because
time is slipping by. How can you avoid tension? Time is slipping by and the goal has
not come yet, and life is becoming less and less. Energy is being lost and the goal has
not come yet. How can you be happy? You become more and more hectic, more and
more hungry for the goal. Death is coming and the goal seems to be nowhere.
Naturally, as you grow in age you become more miserable. It is not death that makes
you miserable and it is not old age that makes you miserable -- it is the impossibility
of the goal. When you are young you can hope. Enough time is there, enough energy
is there, the body is healthy, and you have not tasted frustration yet, and dreams look
beautiful. By and by, as you grow in age, you will grow in frustration. All dreams will
break somewhere. And you will go on creating new illusions because you cannot live
without an illusion. Death comes close and the goal does not come -- that is what
misery is. That is what frightens.
But if you don't have any goal, you will not be frightened by death. If you don't have
any goal, you will not be frightened by anything -- nothing can be taken away from
you. You cannot miss in the very nature of things! It is impossible to miss.
The modern mind is even more addicted to goals because the modern mind is
educated, civilised. The more you are educated, the more ambitious you become --
because all that education does is to create a subtle mechanism in you for ambition.
Education corrupts you, corrupts your sources of joy, gives you great ambition, ego
trips. The more the world has become educated, the more panicky people are -- and
nobody is certain whether he is going to make it or not.
In Lewis Carroll's Alice's ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, there is this beautiful
piece:
'Cheshire Puss,' said Alice, 'would you tell me please which way I ought to go from
here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the cat.
'I don't much care where,' said Alice.
'Then it does not matter which way you go,' said the cat.
'So long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Ah, you are sure to do that,' said the cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'
Where are you going? What is the goal? Once you have a goal in your mind you start
seeking for means, ways, to reach the goal. Once you have an end in mind, you start
looking for paths, methods, techniques. Goal-orientation creates the path, the method,
the technique. Once the goal is dissolved, there is no need for any technique or for any
method. Then suddenly you are here. And you are not missing anything. The idea of
missing is created by the idea of a goal. Once you have a goal then you feel you are
missing.
For example, if you have a goal that you need to have one million dollars, then you
are missing -- because you don't have even one dollar in your pocket. And you need to
have one million dollars. So you are missing one million dollars. The man sitting by
your side who has not got that idea of one million dollars, who is not that mad, is not
missing. Both are in the same situation, both may have the same kind of money, hut
one is missing and one is not missing. It depends.
You are missing God because God has become your goal. You are missing
enlightenment because enlightenment has become your goal. Nobody else is missing.
Make a goal and that becomes the problem. If you listen to me rightly, drop the goal.
Drop all goals. And you will not be able to miss. There is no way to miss then! How
can you miss without having a goal in your mind? And when you are not missing, that
is the state of being a God, or being in God. When you are not missing, that is what is
called enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a goal. It is the understanding that there is
nothing to miss because there is nothing to achieve.
Let me repeat it: enlightenment is not a goal. It is the understanding that there is
nothing to achieve, nothing to miss. Then you are enlightened.
You can become enlightened this very moment. Nobody is barring the-path, nothing is
hindering you. But the problem is with you -- that you want to become enlightened in
the future. Even if I go on insisting that you can become enlightened right now, the
question arises, 'Right now? How can it be possible? Give us a little time, we will
have to prepare. We will have to get ready. We will have to do yoga ASANAS and
Dynamic Meditation and Kundalini and things like that. Just give us a little time. How
can we become enlightened just as we are?'
YOU ARE enlightened, that's why I say you can become enlightened right now. You
have never been unenlightened ever! You have always have been enlightened all
along. You just don t recognise the fact.
You ask: HOW TO BECOME...? And in that very how, you miss, you miss the whole
point. There is no how to it. Once you start trying, then you are getting into difficulty.
Just the other night I was telling a story....
A Zen Master dropped his handkerchief and said to one of his disciples who was just
sitting here, 'Try to pick up the handkerchief. Try to pick it up.'
Immediately the disciple picked up the handkerchief and gave it to the Master. But the
Master was not happy. He dropped it again.
And he said, 'Listen to me, to what I am saying. Try to pick it up.' And the disciple
again picked it up. It happened six times, and the Master dropped the handkerchief
again and again. When he dropped it the seventh time it dawned upon the disciple
what he meant. He was saying something absurd. He was giving a koan.
'Try to pick it up!' How can you 'try to pick it up'? Either you pick it up or you don't
pick it up. How can you try?
Then he got the point that trying is not possible. Either you pick it up or you don't
pick it up -- trying is not possible. Then he laughed.
And he said, 'I understand.' He bowed down, thanked the Master.
And the Master said, 'Remember, never try. Either do or don't do. There is no way to
try.'
Either you are enlightened or you are not enlightened. There is no way to make efforts
for it, there is no way to try. Trying brings tension. And you have been trying, you
have been trying in many ways. When you miss from one way you think that way is
wrong. No, sir, that way is not wrong -- trying is wrong. When you miss with one
Master you think that this Master is wrong. No, not necessarily. The Master may not
be wrong at all. Just because you were trying you missed.
You miss in the church so you go to the temple. You miss in the temple so you go to
the mosque. You miss in the mosque so you go to the GURUDWARA. But you don't
drop your addiction to trying. Neither the temple, nor the mosque, nor the church, nor
the gurudwara is going to give it to you -- because you already have it.
The only thing that is needed is an understanding of the absurdity of trying. This is a
speed mania -- first trying, and then, naturally, the second idea comes automatically:
to get there soon and fast. Who knows, tomorrow life may not be there. So first one
starts trying, reaching, grabbing for the goal, and then one becomes interested in how
to attain speed.
In day-to-day life, or in the so-called spiritual life, the problem is the same.
Just the other day I was reading: 'The average American spends fifteen hundred hours
annually driving some seven thousand-odd miles and earning the capital needed to
keep his vehicle in tow, shelter it, park it, and pay highway taxes. For each hour of his
life invested, he covers only five miles in his car.
'In nations where highways are few, citizens cover such distances on foot. The
difference between Americans and these backward, non-industrialised folk is that
Americans spend twenty-five per cent of their time each day concerned with getting
to and fro, and the walking citizens of other lands spend only five per cent.'
Now this great effort to reach there fast, with speed. has created only problems. It is
ridiculous that the backward country people only give five per cent of their time to
going to their work and coming back home, and the Americans give twenty-five per
cent -- with all the modern techniques, speedy vehicles. This is ridiculous! What is the
point of it all?
And this whole thing has happened because of speed -- you have to reach fast.
First, there is nowhere to reach. Second, there is no need to be so fast. Be on a
pleasure trip. Let this life be a joyous journey to nowhere -- from nowhere to nowhere.
You come from nowhere, you go to nowhere. In the middle you exist. You come out
of nothing, you disappear into nothing. In the middle is the flash of being. Enjoy it
while it is there. Celebrate it. Don't destroy it in reaching somewhere; there is
nowhere to reach. And, more important, there is nobody inside to reach. The traveller
exists not, the traveller is a myth.
The pilgrimage is true but the pilgrim is false.
Look into your deep moments of joy and you will understand what I mean. When you
are really joyous, there is nobody who is joyous in you; there is only joy. When you
are celebrating, there is nobody who is celebrating; there is only celebration. When
you are dancing, look within. There is nobody who is dancing, there is only dance.
That's what Sufis call FANA -- there is nobody inside. it is all emptiness, it is all pure
emptiness.
You create the goal, the goal creates the ego. Then the ego needs higher and greater
and bigger goals. And bigger and higher goals create bigger and higher egos, naturally.
A worldly man has money as the goal; his ego is not very big. But the spiritual man -his ego is enormous, because he has a bigger goal. Money is below him, he needs God.
Less than that is not going to satisfy him. Power and prestige are below him; he wants
nirvana, enlightenment. So you will see more ego, more burning ego, in the spiritual
man than in the ordinary, the worldly man. The worldly man is not so egoistic. His
goals are very day-to-day things, trivia. With trivial goals you create a trivial ego;
with great goals you create a great ego. With no goal, ego disappears -- fana, anatta -no-self.
So try to understand how you go on creating misery by creating goals, how you go on
creating ego by creating goals. It is a vicious circle. And then speed comes into the
mind -- then you want to do it as fast as possible. First, there is no goal; second, there
is nobody to achieve it; and third, you are creating another misery for yourself -- how
to reach there fast. The goal exists not, the seeker exists not, and now there is this idea
of speed. That creates more and more anguish. You cannot sleep, you cannot rest, you
cannot love. How can you when there is so much left to be done, when the whole life
seems to be a wasteland because the goal has not happened yet?
Understanding is conversion, understanding is what Sufis call TOBA -- a return, a
hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. You simply see the point, and you laugh, and you can
have a cup of tea.
That's what enlightenment is -- laughter, and a cup of tea.
The second question:
Question 2
YOU BELIEVE THAT MAN SHOULD LIVE MORE MEDITATIVELY. HOW CAN
THIS SOLVE LIFE PROBLEMS OR PREVENT WARS?
First, I don't believe a thing. I am not a believer at all. Never join the word 'belief with
me.
It is not my belief 'that man should live more meditatively', it is my understanding that
man can live only in meditation -- otherwise there is no life. Meditation is life. Not to
be in meditation is not to live. Then you only pretend that you are living; then your
life is just a mask. It has no authenticity in it, it has no depth; it is just the surface, the
facade.
So first, I don't believe that man should live more meditatively. Second, I have no
'shoulds' and 'should nots'. Never bring those words in where I am concerned. I don't
give you any 'should', because all 'shoulds' bring guilt. If I say that you should do this,
I am creating guilt in you. If you cannot do it, there will be guilt. You will feel that
you have missed something; you will become more miserable. And the 'should' means
future. I am not concerned with the future at all. Look at the lilies in the field. They
think not of the morrow, hence they are beautiful. Listen to the birds in the trees. They
don't think of the morrow, hence they are fantastic, gorgeous. Each moment is so
joyful.
I don't give you any 'should'. 'Should' means the future, 'should' means you have to do
something tomorrow, or the next moment. 'Should' cannot be related to the present,
'should' brings the future in. My whole concern is with the present -- this moment. I
don't give you any dreams. 'Shoulds' are all utopian. They say, 'If you do this, then this
will happen.' They are conditions. And I say to you that God is unconditionally given
to you. It is a gift. There is no way to earn God, there is no way to become worthy of
having God -- God is not a possession. God is a gift, and an unconditional gift. it is
available to each and every one, there is no 'should' to be fulfilled.
So even meditation is not a 'should'.
And thirdly, how can you DO meditation? It is not a question of doing. You can be in
meditation but you cannot DO it. It is like love. You can be in love, but you cannot do
it. Have you ever tried doing love? Then you go on doing something else, and there is
no flow, there is no glow, there is no joy. It becomes a duty. You go into empty
gestures, impotent movements, but there is no soul in it. You cannot do love. Love is a
state, not an act. So is meditation.
Meditation is a state of silence; meditation is a state of no desire; meditation is a state
of no past, no future; meditation is a state when you are not doing anything, just
cherishing your being. You are just happy that you are, happy that you are breathing,
simply happy for no reason at all. In those moments there is meditation.
I cannot say to you that meditation is a 'should', that you should do it. I can only
explain to you what meditation is. If you understand me, you will be in meditation.
There is no 'should' to it. It you don't understand me, you will not be in meditation.
But then too you need not feel guilty. Guilt comes when you do something and you
fail. Now meditation can become the sure way to create guilt. If you DO it, you will
fail! That's how people are guilty.
They try to make love and it doesn't happen -- they feel guilty. They start thinking, 'I
am unloving, I'm trying my hardest and it is not happening.' Naturally they think that
something is wrong with them. Nothing is wrong. The only thing wrong is that you
are trying to do something which cannot be tried. You are trying to do something
which can only be spontaneous -- it comes when it comes. At the most the only thing
you can do is not resist it -- when it comes, don't resist it. When it comes, keep your
doors open, that's all. But that is not much of a doing, it is more of a non-doing. You
can allow meditation to happen or you can resist meditation and not allow it to happen.
'Should' cannot be made out of it.
I don't give you any commandment; I am not a commander. All commanders are
dangerous people; they have destroyed humanity. All commandments have corrupted
man because they have created guilt. A 'should' is a goal.
I am simply sharing my understanding with you. I am in no way concerned with
improving upon you. I am not trying to fix you. If you want to be fixed you should go
to a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst, a therapist. They are the people who fix you.
But the very idea of fixing a person is insulting. It means you have been taken as a
thing. Yes, a car can be fixed in the garage, and when your bathroom is leaking a
plumber can fix it -- but man is not a thing. You cannot fix man.
First the priest used to do it, now the psychotherapist is doing it. The priest has failed.
The psychoanalyst is failing, not because something is wrong with the priest or
something is wrong with the psychoanalyst, no. The whole effort is wrong. You
cannot fix anybody. Man is freedom. The idea of fixing him reduces him to a thing,
kills his spirit. I don't give you any 'should' and I don't want to fix you. In fact, I am
not interested in your spiritual growth at all.
What I am interested in is sharing that which has happened to me. It is not that I have
done it, it has happened to me. And because it has happened to me, how can I give a
'should' to you? It happens. I can only make you alert about how it happens. It has
nothing to do with you or with your doing. You have to be receptive. Understanding
makes you receptive, understanding makes you more relaxed, understanding brings
you to a kind of let-go. And in that space, meditation simply IS.
Meditation is a state when you are not trying for anything, not even for meditation.
Meditation is a state of non-striving, utter relaxation. There is no goal, nowhere to go,
nothing to be done. The sheer joy of being is what meditation is. How can you do it?
By doing it you will destroy it.
So I cannot give you a 'should'.
You ask: YOU BELIEVE THAT MAN SHOULD LIVE MORE MEDITATIVELY.
No. All that I want to say to you is that meditation is your birthright. It is there
waiting for you to relax a little bit -- so that it can sing a song, so that it can become a
dance. The flower is there but you are so worried about other things that you can't see
it. It has already happened. It happened the moment you were born, it happened the
moment you became alive. The moment you entered into existence, meditation
bloomed in you.
And sometimes there are moments when you become aware of it. Just hidden beneath
the surface of your day-to-day activ-ities, have you not become aware of a substratum
deep down where nothing ever happens and all is silent? In the Upanishads they say
that life is like two birds sitting on a tree. One bird is sitting high on the top of the tree.
unmoving, silent, as if not. Another bird is jumping from one branch to another, from
this fruit to that fruit, is fighting, is struggling, is trying to reach, is very tense, tired,
frustrated. The Upanishads say that these two birds are you. On the lower branch the
one bird goes on jumping, rushing, in a hurry, doing this and that. On a higher branch
the other bird goes on sitting, just watching the lower bird and the foolish efforts that
he is making. And both are you.
Deep in you, meditation is already the case. So whenever it happens that your
day-to-day turmoil is a little bit less.... Maybe you are watching a sunset, and
watching the sunset your constant chattering mind has become quiet, the beauty of the
sunset has made it quiet. You are in a kind of awe -- the wonder, the mystery, the
beautiful sun setting, the night descending, the birds moving back to their nests, the
whole earth getting ready to rest, the whole climate of rest. The day is gone, the
turmoil of the day is gone, and your mind feels quiet. The bird on the lower branch
sits for a moment unmoving. Suddenly there are not two birds any more, there is only
one bird. And suddenly you feel great joy arising in you.
You think that the joy is because of the beautiful sunset. That's where you are wrong.
The beautiful sunset may have functioned as a situation but it is not because of that.
The joy is coming from within. The sun may have helped, but it is not the source. It
may have been helpful in creating the situation, but it is not the cause. The joy is
coming from you. It is arising in you. It was there; the surface mind had only to settle
in a quiet space. And the joy started arising.
Or looking at the moon; or sometimes listening to music -- Beethoven or Mozart; or
sometimes playing a flute; or sometimes doing nothing, just sitting on the grass,
basking in the sun; or sometimes walking in the rain and the water goes on splashing
on you and everything is cool and wet and the smell of the earth and the music of the
falling rain -- suddenly the joy is there, the benediction is there. It does not come from
the outside, it comes from your innermost core. That's what I call meditation.
Once you have started to understand this, you will be falling more and more into that
meditative state. It is not something to do, it is something to understand.
And you ask: HOW CAN THIS SOLVE LIFE PROBLEMS OR PREVENT WARS? I
am not worried about life problems and I am not worried about wars. In fact, I am not
concerned with society at all. My whole concern is the individual. My whole concern
is you. My whole concern is the personal, not the social.
Yes, if more and more people start falling into a meditative state, the society will
change, automatically. But that is none of my business, I am not worried about that. If
it happens, it happens. If more and more people start living in this meditative state,
enjoying this meditative state of non-striving, non-ambition, non-desiring; if many,
many people live in this kind of rest, they will create a vibe around themselves. And
the society will naturally cool down.
The society goes to war because people are tense, because people are continuously
warring within themselves, because people are angry, because people are in a rage,
because people are very, very complaining -- they are not happy, they want to destroy.
When you are happy you want to create; when you are unhappy you want to destroy.
When you are in a kind of rage you become murderers or you become suicidal; when
you are in a kind of gratitude you write a song or you paint a picture -- you do
something creative. Creativity comes out of happiness; destruction comes OUt of
unhappiness.
People are miserable. Millions and millions of people are miserable -- their misery
collects like clouds. Have you sometimes seen smoke arising from every roof in an
Indian village? That smoke goes on gathering, becomes a cloud, hangs over the
village. Everybody has contributed to it. That's what a war is. Rage, violence,
ambition, aggression is rising from everybody's roof, from everybody's head, like
smoke. Then it collects together, it becomes a great cloud -- that's what war is. Then
one day you are all surrounded in darkness, in murder, in killing each other, in rape.
After every ten years a great war is needed, because in ten years we accumulate so
much anger that only war can release it. We accumulate so much pus that after each
ten years the world has to become mad, neurotic, so we can release our pus and
poison.
But I am not directly concerned because that is not the direct thing. Nothing can be
done about it directly. That's what politicians go on doing: talking about peace,
releasing peace doves. All nonsense! And they go on creating bombs. They talk about
peace and they prepare for war. They even say that ridiculous thing: that they are
preparing for war so that there can be peace in the world.
I am not concerned directly with the society. I am concerned with the individual
because only the transformation of the individual can ultimately bring another kind of
society into the world. It cannot be brought directly. Those who try to bring it directly
are the politicians. I am not a politician at all.
The new society can come one day, if the new consciousness has come. But it will be
a by-product of a new consciousness, not vice versa.
Marx says, 'First the society has to change, then the new consciousness will be born.' I
say, 'First the new consciousness has to come, then the society will change.'
Consciousness is more valuable. A meditative consciousness has to be released into
the world. And you cannot do anything other than become meditative. If you yourself
move into that space more and more, you will be creating a kind of energy around you
which will help others to become more meditative. When you sit by the side of a
meditative person, something in you starts changing immediately.
When you sit by the side of a person who is really angry, something in you starts
getting disturbed. His anger hits you, provokes your anger. When you sit around a
closed person you become closed. His closedness tends to create closedness in you.
We are affected by each other because we live in one ocean. It is natural to be affected
by each other. When you see somebody laughing, suddenly a smile comes to your
face. You may have been in misery, but for a moment you forget. The laughter was so
beautiful, so catching, so infectious that you forgot your misery for a moment; you got
in tune with the person. The laughter of that person turned you on. You smiled. You
will fall back into the trap -- that's another thing -- but ripples around you affect you.
So my approach is not towards society. To me society does not exist, because society
has no soul. Only the individual exists. The individual has the soul. My approach is
towards the individual, my appeal is to the individual. I provoke the individual, I call
forth the individual. And if many, many individuals are in the kind of space I call
meditation, then by and by there will be no more wars. It is not that we will have to
arrange peace protests and we will have to arrange peace marches -- all that is
nonsense. Have you ever watched people protesting against war? They look so angry.
They are ready to fight with anybody. Every protest of that kind ends in a fight with
the police. They start throwing stones, they start burning buses. Every peace march
ends in war. And you see the people shouting -- how angry they are!
This is another way to throw off your anger, that's all. They are against war. The angry
person needs to be against something -- anything will do -- but he wants to be against
something so that he can show his anger and not feel guilty.
I am not in favour of all these things. They are still political. They are part of the same
rut; they don't change a thing. They only create an illusion that change is going to
come, and it has not come. For five thousand years man has been trying to change
society, and society does not change. All that can be done can be done with the
individual. Only the individual has the capacity to change because only the individual
has the capacity to turn back upon himself.
If many more individuals change, it will be a different kind of society. There will be
no war.
And you ask: HOW CAN THIS SOLVE LIFE PROBLEMS? I am not saying it will
solve life problems, I am simply saying that if you are in a meditative state, problems
will disappear -- they will not be solved; There is no need to solve a problem. The
problem is created by a tense mind in the first place.
For example, a man came to me. He was suffering from insomnia. He was a politician,
a minister, in some state in India, and he wanted me to give him some meditation so
that he could relax and go to sleep. I told him, 'Insomnia is not your problem,
ambition is your problem. What do you go on thinking about in the night?'
He said, 'Politics, of course. Politics, you know, is a continuous fight, so I go on
thinking about it and that keeps me so hot that I cannot fall asleep.'
So I said, 'It is not a question of meditation to help you. The question is how to drop
your ambition, how to understand your ambition.'
But he was not interested in that. He said, 'That is too much, I cannot drop out of
politics. I have come just for your blessings so that I can sleep.'
Now he wants to do a miracle. He will create insomnia and I have to bless him so that
he can sleep well. And he said, 'I went to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and he gave me
Transcendental Meditation, and he said "Everything will be okay. Your problem will
be solved."'
I told him, 'This is foolish. You will be creating the problem continuously. It is not a
question of solving it. You go on pouring water onto the roots of a tree and you go on
pruning the tree. Stop watering it, otherwise pruning is not going to help. In fact,
pruning may make its foliage more thick. I cannot give you any meditation but I can
show you, make you understand, how you are creating your insomnia. Your ambition
is the cause. If ambition disappears, insomnia will disappear.'
Life problems are not to be solved. Why they are there in the first place has to be
understood.
A meditative mind has insight. He can see how he himself creates his problems. And
then, naturally, one stops creating them. It is not that one solves them -- they are no
longer created.
And there are three kinds of problems. The first are those that you create -- they are
almost ninety per cent of the problems of your life. You go on creating them and you
go on saying that you don't want them -- but you go on creating them. You have to see
the absurdity of it, the foolishness of it. Ninety per cent of the problems simply
disappear when you are in a meditative state -- because you can see. And by seeing,
you stop creating them.
Then there are the second kind of problems -- nine per cent -- those you don't create.
They are created by living with people. Through meditation, a few of them will be
solved, but a few of them will not be solved because you will not be the source of
them. For example, you are jealous of your wife. That will be solved. But if your wife
is jealous of you that will not be solved by your meditation. In fact, that is not your
problem at all. How can it be solved by your meditation? Your problem will be solved
-- you will no longer be jealous. If your wife is jealous, that is her business, she will
suffer. But you don't take any responsibility for it any more, and you don't suffer for it.
Seeing that it has nothing to do with you, that it does not arise in you, you have
transcended it. It is something the wife has to do: she has to become meditative.
So there are problems which arise in other people and are reflected in you, and
sometimes because you are not meditative you identify yourself with those problems.
They will not be solved by you, they cannot be solved by you, but they have nothing
to do with you. You can live in spite of them, beautifully, happily. Once you
understand that they have nothing to do with you, you are finished with them.
Ninety per cent will be solved; nine per cent will not be solved by your meditation but
will be dissolved because they will not concern you at all. One per cent remains. It has
nothing to do with you or with others -- that one per cent is part of existence itself.
Then, if it is part of existence itself... for example, death. It is not a problem -- nobody
is creating it, neither you nor others. It is not a problem at all. When ninety-nine per
cent of the problems have disappeared, that one per cent will be seen not as a problem
but as a mystery. The whole outlook changes; it is a mystery.
There are those kinds of things around us which are mysterious. We convert them into
problems because we are problematic. We convert everything into a problem. Even if
solutions are given to us, we convert those solutions into problems.
For example, I go on talking about enlightenment to help you understand. You make a
problem out of it. You say, 'How to attain it?' You have made a problem. You say,
'What methods to use? What paths to follow?' You have made it a problem.
I was trying to share my understanding, I was trying to share my love, I was trying to
share my being, and you have made a problem out of it. Now you are worried, now
you will not be able to sleep well. Now you will constantly think, 'When and how am
I going to become enlightened? I have not become enlightened yet.' It will create
misery.
And you will do many things and all the things will fail. I say ALL. Not a single thing
can succeed because enlightenment is not something in which you can succeed.
Enlightenment is something which arises in you when you have utterly failed, when
you have done all that you can do and there is no more to do -- in that very state the
let go happens. It happens because you cannot do anything any more, you have done
all -- so you relax. There is no more to do. You get off your trip. In that failure...
enlightenment. That utter failure is the door.
I share my understanding with you -- you make a problem out of it. I tell you about
meditation and the beauty and the benediction of it, and you immediately make it a
desire. Then the problem arises.
One per cent will remain, but that will not be seen as a problem at all. In fact, it will
become something immensely valuable. It is a mystery. Birth is a mystery, love is a
mystery, death is a mystery, existence is a mystery. There is no way to explain it. It
cannot be explained. Its very stuff is made of mystery. You can go on knowing it. The
more you know, the more you will feel you don't know. When you become really wise
-- when you have known all -- suddenly you will become ignorant. You will say, 'I
don't know anything at all.' Ultimate wisdom is innocent of knowledge.
So these are the three kinds of problems: ninety per cent will become simply
meaningless because you will not create them. Nine per cent will remain there, will
not affect you at all because you have nothing to do with them. And one per cent will
remain, but they will no longer be problems, they will be mysteries -- beautiful
mysteries to be lived, to be gone through.
In that state, when there is no problem hovering around you, there is joy.
The third question:
THE FAMILY HAS BEEN THE BASIC SOCIAL UNIT FOR THOUSANDS OF
YEARS, YET YOU DOUBT ITS VALIDITY IN YOUR NEW world. WHAT DO
YOU SUGGEST CAN REPLACE IT?
Man has outgrown the family. The utility of the family is finished; it has lived too
long. It is one of the most ancient institutions so only very perceptive people can see
that it is dead already. It will take time for others to recognise the fact that the family
is dead.
It has done its work. It is no longer relevant in the new context of things; it is no
longer relevant for the new humanity that is just being born.
The family has been good and bad. It has been a help -- man has survived through it -and it has been very harmful because it has corrupted human mind. But there was no
alternative in the past, there was no way to choose anything else. It was a necessary
evil. That need not be so in the future. The future can have alternative styles.
My idea is that the future is not going to be one fixed pattern; it will have many, many
alternative styles. If a few people still choose to have a family, they should have the
freedom to have it. It will be a very small percentage. There are families on the earth
-- very rare, not more than one per cent -- which are really beautiful, which are really
beneficial, in which growth happens; in which there is no authority, no power trip, no
possessiveness; in which children are not destroyed; in which the wife is not trying to
destroy the husband and the husband is not trying to destroy the wife; where love is
and freedom is; where people have gathered together just out of joy -- not for other
motives; where there is no politics. Yes, these kinds of families have existed on earth;
they are still there. For these people there is no need to change. In the future they can
continue to live in families.
But for the greater majority, the family is an ugly thing. You can ask the
psychoanalysts and they will say, 'All kinds of mental diseases arise out of the family.
All kinds of psychoses, neuroses, arise out of the family. The family creates a very,
very ill human being. '
There is no need; alternative styles should be possible. For me, one alternative style is
the commune -- it is the best.
A commune means people living in a liquid family. Children belong to the commune,
they belong to all. There is no personal property, no personal ego. A man lives with a
woman because they feel like living together, because they cherish it, they enjoy it.
The moment they feel that love is no longer happening, they don't go on clinging to
each other. They say good-bye with all gratitude, with all friendship. They start
moving with other people. The only problem in the past was what to do with the
children. In a commune, children can belong to the commune, and that will be far
better. They will have more opportunities to grow with many more kinds of people.
Otherwise a child grows up with the mother. For years the mother and the father are
the only two images of human beings for him. Naturally he starts imitating them.
Children turn out to be imitators of their fathers, and they perpetuate the same kind of
illness in the world as their parents did. They become ditto copies. It is very
destructive. And there is no way for the children to do something else; they don't have
any other source of information.
If a hundred people live together in a commune there will be many male members,
many female members; the child need not get fixed and obsessed with one pattern of
life. He can learn from his father, he can learn from his uncles, he can learn from all
the men in the community. He will have a bigger soul.
Families crush people and give them very little souls. In the community the child will
have a bigger soul he will have more possibilities, he will be far more enriched in his
being. He will see many women; he will not have one idea of a woman. It is very
destructive to have only one single idea of a woman -- because throughout your whole
life you will be searching and searching for your mother. Whenever you fall in love
with a woman, watch! There is every possibility that you have found someone that is
similar to your mother, and that may be the thing that you should have avoided.
Each child is angry with his mother. The mother has to prohibit many things, the
mother has to say no -- it cannot be avoided. Even a good mother sometimes has to
say no, and restrict and deny. The child feels rage, anger. He hates the mother and
loves the mother also because she is his survival, his source of life and energy. So he
hates the mother and loves the mother together. And that becomes the pattern. You
will love the woman and you will hate the same woman. And you don't have any other
kind of choice. You will always go on searching, unconsciously, for your mother. And
that happens to women also, they go on searching for their father. Their whole life is a
search to find dad as a husband.
Now your dad is not the only person in the world; the world is far more rich. And in
fact, if you can find the dad you will not be happy. You can be happy with a beloved,
with a lover, not with your daddy. If you can find your mother you will not be happy
with her. You know her already, there is nothing else to explore. That is familiar
already, and familiarity breeds contempt. You should search for something new, but
you don't have any image.
In a commune a child will have a richer soul. He will know many women, he will
know many men; he will not be addicted to one or two persons.
The family creates an obsession in you, and the obsession is against humanity. If your
father is fighting with somebody and you see he is wrong, that doesn't matter -- you
have to be with the father and on his side. Just as people say, 'Wrong or right, my
country is my country!' so they say, 'My father is my father, wrong or right. My
mother is my mother, I have to be with her.' Otherwise it will be a betrayal.
It teaches you to be unjust. You can see your mother is wrong and she is fighting with
the neighbour and the neighbour is right -- but you have to be with the mother. This is
the learning of an unjust life.
In a commune you will not be attached too much to one family -- there will be no
family to be attached to. You will be more free, less obsessed. You will be more just.
And you will have love from many sources. You will feel that life is loving. The
family teaches you a kind of conflict with society, with other families. The family
demands monopoly. It asks you to be for it and against all. You have to be in the
service of the family. You have to go on fighting for the name and the fame of the
family. The family teaches you ambition, conflict, aggression. In a commune you will
be less aggressive, you will be more at ease with the world because you have known
so many people.
That's what I am going to create here -- a commune, where all will be friends. Even
husbands and wives should not be more than friends. Their marriage should be just an
agreement between the two -- that they have decided to be together because they are
happy together. The moment even one of them decides that unhappiness is settling,
then they separate. There is no need for any divorce. Because there is no marriage,
there is no divorce. One lives spontaneously.
When you live miserably, by and by you become habituated to misery. Never for a
single moment should one tolerate any misery. It may have been good to live with a
man in the past, and joyful, but if it is no longer joyful then you have to get out of it.
And there is no need to get angry and destructive, and there is no need to carry a
grudge -- because nothing can be done about love. Love is like a breeze. You see... it
just comes. If it is there it is there. Then it is gone. And when it is gone it is gone.
Love is a mystery, you cannot manipulate it. Love should not be manipulated, love
should not be legalised, love should not be forced -- for no reason at all.
In a commune, people will be living together just out of the sheer joy of being
together, for no other reason. And when the joy has disappeared, they part. Maybe it
feels sad, but they have to part. Maybe the nostalgia of the past still lingers in the
mind, but they have to part. They owe it to each other that they should not live in
misery, otherwise misery becomes a habit. They part with heavy hearts, but with no
grudge. They will seek other partners.
In the future there will be no marriage as it has been in the past, and no divorce as it
has been in the past. Life will be more liquid, more trusting. There will be more trust
in the mysteries of life than in the clarities of the law, more trust in life itself than in
anything -- the court, the police, the priest, the church. And the children should belong
to all -- they should not carry the badges of their family. They will belong to the
commune; the commune will take care of them.
This will be the most revolutionary step in human history -- for people to start living
in communes and to start being truthful, honest, trusting, and to go on dropping the
law more and more.
In a family, love disappears sooner or later. In the first place it may not have been
there at all from the very beginning. It may have been an arranged marriage -- for
other motives, for money, power, prestige. There may not have been any love from the
very beginning. Then children are born out of a wedlock which is more like a
deadlock -- children are born out of no love. From the very beginning they become
deserts. And this no-love state in the house makes them dull, unloving. They learn
their first lesson of life from their parents, and the parents are unloving and there is
constant jealousy and fighting and anger. And the children go on seeing the ugly faces
of their parents.
Their very hope is destroyed. They can't believe that love is going to happen in their
life if it has not happened in their parents' life. And they see other parents also, other
families also. Children are very perceptive; they go on looking all around and
observing. When they see that there is no possibility of love, they start feeling that
love is only in poetry, it exists only for poets, visionaries -- it has no actuality in life.
And once you have learned the idea that love is just poetry, then it will never happen
because you have become closed to it.
To see it happen is the only way to let it happen later on in your own life. If you see
your father and mother in deep love, in great love, caring for each other, with
compassion for each other, with respect for each other -- then you have seen love
happening. Hope arises. A seed falls into your heart and starts growing. You know it is
going to happen to you too.
If you have not seen it, how can you believe it is going to happen to you too? If it
didn't happen to your parents. how can it happen to YOU? In fact, you will do
everything to prevent it happening to you -- otherwise it will look like a betrayal to
your parents. This is my observation of people: women go on saying deep in the
unconscious, 'Look, Mom, I am suffering as much as you suffered.' Boys go on saying
to themselves later on, 'Dad, don't be worried, my life is as miserable as yours. I have
not gone beyond you, I have not betrayed you. I remain the same miserable person as
you were. I carry the chain, the tradition. I am your representative, Dad, I have not
betrayed you. Look, I am doing the same thing as you used to do to my mother -- I am
doing it to the mother of my children. And what you used to do to me, I am doing to
my children. I am bringing them up in the same way you brought me up.'
Now the very idea of bringing up children is nonsense. You can help at the most, you
cannot bring them up. The very idea of building up children is nonsense -- not only
nonsense, very harmful, immensely harmful. You cannot build.... A child is not a thing,
not like a building. A child is like a tree. Yes, you can help. You can prepare soil, you
can put in fertilizers, you can water, you can watch whether sun reaches the plant or
not -- that's all. But it is not that you are building up the plant, it is coming up on its
own. You can help, but you can not bring it up and you cannot build it up.
Children are immense mysteries. The moment you start building them up, the moment
you start creating patterns and characters around them, you are imprisoning them.
They will never be able to forgive you. And this is the only way they will learn. And
they will do the same thing to their children, and so on, so forth. Each generation goes
on giving its neurosis to the new people that come to the earth. And the society
persists with all its madness, misery.
No, a different kind of thing is needed now. Man has come of age and the family is a
thing of the past; it really has no future. The commune will be the thing that can
replace the family, and it will be far more beneficial.
But in a commune only meditative people can be together. Only when you know how
to celebrate life can you be together; only when you know that space I call meditation
can you be together, can you be loving. The old nonsense of monopolising love has to
be dropped, then only can you live in a commune. If you go on carrying your old
ideas of monopoly -- that your woman should not hold somebody else's hand and your
husband should not laugh with anybody else -- if you carry these nonsensical things in
your mind then you cannot become part of a commune.
If your husband is laughing with somebody else, it is good. Your husband is laughing
-- laughter is always good, with whom it happens it doesn't matter. Laughter is good,
laughter is a value. If your woman is holding somebody else's hand... good. Warmth is
flowing -- the flow of warmth is good, it is a value. With whom it is happening is
immaterial. And if it is happening to your woman with many people, it will go on
happening with you too. If it has stopped happening with anybody else, then it is
going to stop with you too. The whole old idea is so stupid!
It is as if the moment your husband goes out, you say to him, 'Don't breathe anywhere
else. When you come home you can breathe as much as you want, but only when you
are with me can you breathe. Outside hold your breath, become a yogi. I don't want
you to breathe anywhere else.' Now this looks stupid. But then why should love not be
like breathing. Love is breathing.
Breathing is the life of the body and love is the life of the soul. It is far more
important than breathing. Now when your husband goes out, you make it a point that
he should not laugh with anybody else, not at least with any other woman. He should
not be loving to anybody else. So for twenty-three hours he is unloving, then for one
hour when he is in bed with you, he pretends to love. You have killed his love. It is
flowing no more. If for twenty-three hours he has to remain a yogi, holding his love,
afraid, do you think he can relax suddenly for one hour? It is impossible You destroy
the man, you destroy the woman, and then you are fed-up, bored. Then you start
feeling, 'He does not love me!' And it is you who created the whole thing. And then he
starts feeling that you don't love him, and you are no longer as happy as you used to
be before.
When people meet on a beach, when they meet in a garden, when they are on a date,
nothing is settled and everything is liquid; both are very happy Why? Because they
are free. The bird on the wing is one thing, and the same bird in a cage is another
thing. They are happy because they are free.
Man cannot be happy without freedom, and your old family structure destroyed
freedom. And because it destroyed freedom it destroyed happiness, it destroyed love.
It has been a kind of survival measure. Yes, it has somehow protected the body, but it
has destroyed the soul. Now there is no need for it. We have to protect the soul too.
That is far more essential and far more important.
There is no future for the family, not in the sense that it has been understood up to
now. There is a future for love and love relationships. 'Husband' and 'wife' are going
to become ugly and dirty words.
And whenever you monopolise the woman or the man, naturally you monopolise the
children also. I agree totally with Thomas Gordon. He says, 'I think all parents are
potential child-abusers, because the basic way of raising children is through power
and authority. I think it is destructive when many parents have the idea: "It is my kid,
I can do what I want to do with my kid." It is violent, it is destructive, to have the idea:
"It is my kid and I can do whatsoever I want with it."' A kid is not a thing, it is not a
chair, is not a car. You cannot do whatsoever you want to ,lo with him. He comes
through you but he does not belong to you. He belongs to God, to existence. You are
at the most a caretaker; don't become possessive.
But the whole family idea is one of possession -- possess property, possess the woman,
possess the man, possess children -- and possessiveness is poison. Hence, I am against
the family. But I am not saying that those who are really happy in their families -flowing, alive, loving -- have to destroy it. No, there is not need. Their family is
already a commune, a small commune.
And of course a bigger commune will be far better, with more possibilities, more
people. Different people bring different songs, different people bring different life
styles, different people bring different breathings, different breezes, different people
bring different rays of light -- and children should be showered with as many different
life styles as possible, so they can choose, so they can have the freedom to choose.
And they should be enriched by knowing so many women that they are not obsessed
by the mother's face or the mother's style. Then they will be able to love many more
women, many more men. Life will be more of an adventure.
I have heard....
A mother visiting a department store took her son to the toy department. Spying a
gigantic rocking-horse, he climbed upon it and rocked back and forth for almost an
hour.
'Come on, son,' the mother pleaded, 'I have to go home to get father's dinner.' The
little lad refused to budge and all her efforts were unavailing. The department
manager also tried to coax the little fellow, without meeting with any success.
Eventually, in desperation, they called for the store psychiatrist.
Gently he walked over and whispered a few words in the boy's ear, and immediately
the lad jumped off and ran to his mother's side.
'How did you do it?' the mother asked incredulously. 'What did you say to him?'
The psychiatrist hesitated for a moment, then said, 'All I said was, "If you don't jump
off that rocking-horse at once, son, I will knock the stuffing out of you!"'
People learn sooner or later that fear works, that authority works, that power works.
And children are so helpless and they are so dependent on the parents that you can
make them afraid. It becomes your technique to exploit them and oppress them, and
they have nowhere to go.
In a commune they will have many places to go. They will have many uncles and
many aunts and many people -- they will not be so helpless. They will not be in your
hands as much as they are right now. They will have more independence, less
helplessness. You will not be able to coerce them so easily.
And all that they see in the home is misery. Sometimes, yes I know, sometimes the
husband and wife are loving, but whenever they are loving it is always in private.
Children don't know about it. Children see only the ugly faces, the ugly side. When
the mother and the father are loving, they are loving behind closed doors. They keep
quiet, they never allow the children to see what love is. The children see only their
conflict -- nagging, fighting, hitting each other, in gross and subtle ways, insulting
each other, humiliating each other. Children go on seeing what is happening.
A man is sitting in his living room reading the newspaper when his wife comes over
and slaps him.
'What was that for?' asked the indignant husband.
'That is for being a lousy lover.'
A little while later the husband goes over to where the wife is sitting watching TV and
he gives her a resounding smack.
'What was that for?' she yelled at him.
To which he answered, 'For knowing the difference.'
This goes on and on, and the children go on watching what is happening. Is this life?
Is this what life is meant for? Is this all there is? They start losing hope. Before they
enter into life they are already failures, they have accepted failure. If their parents who
are so wise and powerful cannot succeed, what hope is there for them? It is
impossible.
And they have learned the tricks -- tricks of being miserable, tricks of being
aggressive. Children never see love happening. In a commune there will be more
possibilities. Love should come out into the open a little more. People should know
that love happens. Small children should know what love is. They should see people
caring for each other.
Here in this ashram, people, particularly Indians, come to me and they say, 'Why is
this SO? Sannyasins showing so much love towards each other -- in public?' It offends
them. This is one of their problems, their great problems.
Just the other day a magazine came -- a Marathi magazine -- and a man had written an
article against me. He said, 'Everything is okay, but I can't understand.... When Osho
goes, after his discourse, there is much hugging and kissing -- that is very ugly.'
That is not one man's idea -- that is a very ancient idea, an old idea. The idea is that
you can fight in public but you cannot be loving in public. Fight is okay. You can
murder, that is allowed. Tn fact, when two persons are fighting, a crowd will stand
there to see what is happening. And everybody will enjoy it. That's why people go on
reading and enjoying murder stories, suspense stories, detective stories. Murder is
allowed, love is not allowed. If you are loving in public it is thought to be obscene.
Now this is absurd. Love is obscene and murder is not obscene? Lovers are not to be
loving in public and generals can go on walking in public showing all their medals -these are the murderers and these medals are for murder! Those medals show how
much they have murdered, how many people they have killed. That is not obscene.
That should be the obscene thing. Nobody should be allowed to fight in public. It is
obscene; violence is obscene. How can love be obscene? But love is thought to be
obscene. You have to hide it in darkness. You have to make love so nobody knows.
You have to make it so silently, so stealthily... naturally you can t enjoy it much. And
people don't become aware of what love is. Children, particularly, have no way of
knowing what love is.
In a better world, with more understanding, love will be there all over. Children will
see what caring is. Children will see what joy it brings when yoU care for somebody.
You can see it happening here. You can see little Siddhartha holding a girl's hand in a
great caring, in great love. If they watch, they learn. If they know it happens, their
doors open.
Love should be accepted more, violence should be rejected more. Love should be
available more. Two persons making love should not be worried that no one should
know. They should laugh, they should sing, they should scream in joy, so that the
whole neighbourhood knows that somebody is being loving to somebody -- somebody
is making love.
Love should be such a gift. Love should be so divine. It is sacred.
You can publish a book about a man being killed, that's okay that is not pornography.
To me, that is pornography. You cannot publish a book about a man lovingly holding a
woman in deep, naked embrace -- that is pornography. This world has existed against
love up till now. Your family is against love, your society is against love, your state is
against love. It is a miracle that love has still remained a little, it is unbelievable that
love Still goes on -- not as it should be, it is just a small drop not an ocean -- but that it
has survived so many enemies is a miracle. It as not been destroyed completely -- it is
a miracle.
My vision of a commune is of loving people living together with no antagonism
towards each other, with no competition with each other, with love that is fluid, more
available, with no jealousy and no possession. And the children will belong to all
because they belong to God -- everybody takes care of them. And they are such
beautiful people, these children, who will not take care of them? And they have so
many possibilities to see so many people loving, and each person lives in his own way,
each woman loves in her own way -- let the children see, play, enjoy. While their
parents are making love, let them be there, let them be a part of it. Let them watch
what happens to their mother when she makes love -- how ecstatic her face becomes,
what glow comes to her face, how her eyes close and she goes deep into herself; how
their father becomes orgasmic, how he screams with joy. Let the children know!
Let the children know many people loving. They will become more rich. And I tell
you that if these children exist in the world, none of them will read PLAYBOY; There
will be no need. And none of them will read Vatasayana's KAMA SUTRA, there will
be no need. Nude and naked pictures will disappear. They simply show starved sex,
starved love.
The world will become almost non-sexual, it will be so loving. Your priest and your
policeman have created all kinds of obscenity in the world. They are the source of all
that is ugly. And your family has played a great part. The family has to disappear. It
has to disappear into a bigger vision of a commune, of a life not based on small
identities, more floating.
In a commune, somebody will be a Buddhist, somebody will be a Hindu, somebody
will be a Jaina, somebody will be a Christian, and somebody will be a Jew. If families
disappear, churches will disappear automatically, because families belong to churches.
In a commune, there will be all kinds of people, all kinds of religion, all kinds of
philosophies floating around, and the child will have the opportunity to learn. One day
he goes with one uncle to the church, another day he goes with another uncle to the
temple, and he learns all that is there and he can have a choice. He can choose and
decide to what religion he would like to belong. Nothing is imposed.
Life can become a paradise here and now. The barriers have to be removed. The
family is one of the greatest barriers.
The last question:
Question 3
THROUGH THE AGES, INCARNATIONS LIKE JESUS AND BUDDHA HAVE
ACCEPTED TO COME AND HELP HUMANITY. IF LIFE IS NO MORE THAN A
JOKE, WHY DO THEY TAKE THE TROUBLE?
That too is part of this great cosmic joke. Buddha and Christ -- they are part of this
great game, this play, this LEELA. Don't take them seriously, they are not serious
people. They are playing a game. It is all a joke.
When I say 'It is all a joke' I simply mean don't take it seriously and don't take it sadly.
Let it be fun.
Nobody is a saviour -- neither Buddha nor Jesus -- nobody is a saviour. I am included
in it. Nobody is a saviour. Then what is a Buddha? A Buddha is just a salvation. Not a
saviour, a salvation. If you understand him, if you look into him, if you partake of him,
your life is no longer a misery. It is a bliss.
Not that Buddha saves you, not that Jesus saves you. Nobody can save anybody. Only
you can save yourself. But they are salvations. And the secret of salvation is: be joyful,
don't be sad. The secret of salvation is: don't go on creating misery. And the serious
face, the long face, is the unreligious face. That's why I say, 'This life is a cosmic
joke.' It is not to disparage it, it is not disrespectful. It is the greatest respect that I can
show to it -- that it is a play. That's why Hindus call it LEELA, a play.
Be playful, and in that playfulness is your salvation. And it is you and only you who
can save yourself. I can make my heart available to you. I'm not a saviour, I am a
salvation.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #13
Chapter title: Design within Design
8 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709080
ShortTitle:
SUFIS213
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 93 mins
A SUFI OF THE ORDER OF THE NAQSHBANDIS WAS ASKED, 'YOUR
ORDER'S NAME MEANS LITERALLY "THE DESIGNERS". WHAT DO YOU
DESIGN, AND WHAT USE IS IT?'
HE SAID, 'WE DO A GREAT DEAL OF DESIGNING, AND IT IS MOST USEFUL.
HERE IS A PARABLE OF ONE SUCH FORM:
'UNJUSTLY IMPRISONED, A TINSMITH WAS ALLOWED TO RECEIVE A RUG
WOVEN BY HIS WIFE. HE PROSTRATED HIMSELF UPON THE RUG DAY
AFTER DAY TO SAY HIS PRAYERS, AND AFTER SOME TIME HE SAID TO
HIS JAILERS, "I AM POOR AND WITHOUT HOPE, AND YOU ARE
WRETCHEDLY PAID. BUT I AM A TINSMITH. BRING ME TIN AND TOOLS
AND I SHALL MAKE SMALL ARTEFACTS WHICH YOU CAN SELL IN THE
MARKET, AND WE WILL BOTH BENEFIT."
'THE GUARDS AGREED TO THIS, AND PRESENTLY THEY AND THE
TINSMITH WERE BOTH MAKING A PROFIT, FROM WHICH THEY BOUGHT
FOOD AND COMFORTS FOR THEMSELVES.
'THEN, ONE DAY, WHEN THE GUARDS WENT TO THE CELL, THE DOOR
WAS OPEN, AND HE WAS GONE.
'MANY YEARS LATER, WHEN THIS MAN'S INNOCENCE HAD BEEN
ESTABLISHED, THE MAN WHO HAD IMPRISONED HIM ASKED HIM HOW
HE HAD ESCAPED, WHAT MAGIC HE HAD USED. HE SAID, 'IT IS A MATTER
OF DESIGN, AND DESIGN WITHIN DESIGN. MY WIFE IS A WEAVER. SHE
FOUND THE MAN WHO HAD MADE THE LOCKS OF THE CELL DOOR, AND
GOT THE DESIGN FROM HIM. THIS SHE WOVE INTO THE CARPET AT THE
SPOT WHERE MY HEAD TOUCHED IN PRAYER FIVE TIMES A DAY. I AM A
METAL-WORKER, AND THIS DESIGN LOOKED TO ME LIKE THE INSIDE OF
A LOCK. I DESIGNED THE PLAN OF THE ARTEFACTS TO OBTAIN THE
MATERIALS TO MAKE THE KEY -- AND I ESCAPED.'
'THAT,' SAID THE NAQSHBANDI SUFI, 'IS ONE OF THE WAYS IN WHICH
MAN MAY MAKE HIS ESCAPE FROM THE TYRANNY OF HIS CAPTIVITY.'
MAN is born without a definition. He knows he is, but he does not know who he is.
He comes into the world absolutely undefined, uncategorised, unlabelled; he comes
into the world as a freedom. The whole life's task is to define himself, to know who he
is.
.Man is the only animal who asks the question, 'Who am I?' Only he can ask, because
every other animal has a perfect definition. A rose is a rose and a dog is a dog -- a man
is not just a man. A man has much more in him, infinitely more. The rose is a closed
phenomenon, defined; a man is open-ended. The rose is predictable, man is not so.
One never knows. One may be a sinner today and tomorrow become the greatest of
saints -- or vice versa. Man remains open, man remains liquid, man remains flowing.
Man is more like a process than like a defined thing. That is man's glory, and his
misery too -- because he constantly hankers to know who he is. And again and again
he stumbles into the darkness of his being. His being is not illumined -- hence the
search, the enquiry.
On this point man has to be understood. because only from this understanding can he
start working towards a definition, towards realisation, towards truth.
When I say 'man is born without definition' I mean that man is not born ready-made.
What existentialists say is true -- they say that in man, existence precedes his essence.
In a tree, the essence comes first, then the existence. The same is true about
everything else, except man. Essence comes first -- the seed, the essential programme,
the essential design. The blueprint comes first. Then the blueprint unfolds and
becomes existence.
In man just the reverse is the case. First he starts existing -- without any blueprint,
without any design, without being programmed in any way. He simply starts existing
as a nothingness, as nobody. And then, by and by, he has to create his own identity, he
has to create himself. He has to work it out, hence the anxiety. One may be able to,
one may not be able to -- who knows? One may succeed, one may not succeed... there
is no guarantee in man.
A dog is bound to succeed -- he will become a dog. There is no more to it. A peacock
has no fear of being a failure. A tiger need not worry, need not suffer from insomnia.
He is already that which he can be.
Man is not that which he can be, man is just a beginning -- and the end remains
unknown. Man brings no programme into the world, man is not born ready-made. He
is born as utter freedom.
So the responsibility is great -- because otherwise you will go on missing your own
soul. The responsibility is towards yourself. You will never feel fulfilled, you will
always remain empty. If you don't start discovering, creating, inventing, if you don't
start working for your being, you will remain just an existence without an essence.
That's what is happening to millions of people. They have no souls. They exist,
obviously, but their existence has no fulfilment in it, no contentment in it, no joy. This
state is the state of existential anguish, tension, misery -- what Buddha calls
DUKKHA, utter misery. Blissfulness comes when you have come out of the darkness,
you have become defined, you have become illuminated, you have an inner flame and
now you know who you are. By knowing this, you have found your home -- otherwise
you remain a stranger, always searching for the home and never at home anywhere
You remain a traveller you never know rest -- because rest is possible only when you
have come home.
So the whole life is a search for the home -- a place where you can rest and relax, a
space where you can be yourself, utterly fulfilled in your being. Existence has to
become essence. existence has to produce essence.
And when I say 'man has to create himself' I mean that's how he participates in God.
Animals live; they don't create. Trees live; they don't create. Even if something comes
out of them, it is a natural production -- the fruit will come, the flowers will come. It
is only man who creates. There is no necessity.... There was no possibility of
predicting that Picasso would do his paintings. A mango tree will produce mangoes
but nothing is certain about man. Picasso will produce paintings, or become a Buddha,
or a dancer... nobody knows.
Man is a chaos, a creative chaos. He is very nebulous in his being. You cannot demark
him, you cannot say exactly what he is. And man goes on changing every day. He is
river-like. This is man's dignity. He is the only animal who can create; he is the only
animal who participates in God's creativity.
But then there is also a problem. No glory can come without a problem with it. The
glory is that you can miss. You may not be able to sing your song, you may not be
able to dance your dance -- you may be a failure. So man is constantly surrounded by
fear -- fear of failure; fear of remaining nobody; fear of remaining a nothingness, an
unfulfilled, yearning nothingness; fear of remaining barren; fear of remaining a desert.
Who knows? You can't be certain about it. There is no guarantee in man's existence.
The possibility of failure is ninety-nine per cent. The possibility of success is only one
per cent -- hence there is a trembling in man's heart. Every step is in the unknown,
with no guarantee, with no security. Every path is taking you into the unknown. You
don't know whether it will lead you to the goal or whether it will just turn into a
cul-de-sac. It may reach only to a precipice from where there is no going anywhere.
You may have to come back and all the effort may be a wastage. Nobody knows.
One has to move into darkness not knowing where one is going. But one still has to
move -- because if you don't move, then too life goes on slipping by. It is better to
move than not to move, because with movement there is at least a possibility that you
may arrive. With no moving, there is not even that possibility. One has to choose.
And all alternatives look alike. It is as if you are standing at a crossroad -- all roads
look alike. It may be this, it may be that, and there is no way to decide a priori that
this is going to be right. You have to search and seek. Trial and error is the only
method available to man -- that's why many people decide not to choose. That keeps
them in a more convenient and comfortable life. It is better to sit on the crossroads
and not to choose, not to go anywhere. At least you can avoid being in error.
But just by avoiding being in error, you don't become fulfilled. You may not have
committed any error but you have not arrived anywhere. So the people who are very
much afraid of making mistakes are the ones who lose this opportunity, this great
opportunity, to grow, to be.
Man has to find himself. He has to ask. This cannot be avoided. Those who avoid,
avoid at their own risk. 'Who am I?' -- this has to be asked and this has to be asked
continuously till the answer arrives from the deepest core of one's being. This is the
only religious question.
And, remember, man is not a being because he is not ready-made. He is not a being
because he is a process. So man is a bridge. He has to be surpassed, he has to be
outgrown -- that is, to find himself he has to go beyond himself. Man is con-tinually
trying to transcend himself, to surpass himself.
This is very paradoxical -- the effort to surpass oneself -- but man is a paradoxical
being. It is a bridge you have to pass over. You cannot make your house on the bridge.
Those who make their houses on the bridge will never reach to the other shore. One
has to go on. There are a thousand and one anxieties in going, there are a thousand
and one problems, a thousand and one hazards, but in spite of all that, one has to go
on. One has to commit many mistakes before one can know what truth is.
That's why man has to be constantly departing from his past. The past is the known,
the known you, and the future is the unknown you. And you have always to sacrifice
the known you for the unknown you. This is what all great religions teach. This is
what they call sacrifice. Sacrifice that which you have known, all that that you have
become identified with. Sacrifice the past for the future, the known for the unknown,
the settled for the unsettled. This is the only way to grow. If you become too much
identified with the past, growth stops. If you become too much entangled with the past,
you start moving in circles.
Man is not a pilgrim but a pilgrimage. And obviously there are problems, great
problems. Problems don't exist for animals and trees and rocks and rivers, problems
exist only for man -- because everything else is defined, everything is settled already
by nature itself. Nature has left man unsettled; man has been left to his own efforts,
his own endeavours. But these problems have to be understood not as problems, but
as challenges not enemies, but as friends -- because it is only through them that one
learns, one knows, one becomes.
Because of this search, maps have to be devised, designs have to be devised. Because
of this search, you will need guidelines. Remember, a map is just a map, it is not the
country that it represents. The map of India is not India. No design is the truth. The
design is just a design, but it can help tremendously. A map can help tremendously,
knowing perfectly well that the map is not the country. The map does not even
resemble the country -- by seeing the map of India you will not be seeing anything of
India. The map resembles nothing. The map is just a parallel device; it is a metaphor,
a symbolic representation.
But it can be of great help. Those who have gone beyond can create designs for you -that's the function of a Master. Those who have known, those who have arrived, those
who have attained to their definition, those who are no longer just existential but who
have become essences; those who have become souls, crystallised, centred, grounded;
those who are -- can give you a few guidelines, a few hints, a few maps.
Sufis call them designs, and there exists a school of Sufis called 'the designers' -NAQSHBANDI. It is one of the most important Sufi schools. There are others. They
are all called by names like this. Another school is called 'the weavers', another school
is called 'the boatmakers'. Sufis have such names. Those names are very practical -they immediately indicate what the school is doing.
NAQSHBANDIS have been designing maps -- what in India we call YANTRA. A
YANTRA is called a design by Sufis. You may have seen Indian yantras and you may
be puzzled about what they are. Looking at a YANTRA there are only lines,
geometrical designs -- but if you know how to decode it, you will be surprised. It is
the map of your whole journey. It shows something, but you will have to know the
language. The map is in a certain language, it is not available to the public -- because
the public can use it in a dangerous way. It hides great power within it. It can be given
only to the initiates. All world religions have created their designs, but nothing to
compare with the NAQSHBANDIS.
First it has to be understood that a map is a device -- arbitrary. It is neither true nor
false. It is simply useful or not useful. It is a utilitarian device. It has nothing to do
with truth as such.
Once Buddha was asked, 'Can a Buddha lie? Can a man who is enlightened, lie?'
Buddha said, 'He has to -- because he will have to devise maps. Maps are lies -- lies in
the sense that they are not truth. They are indications towards truth. Once you have
reached, you will throw away the map. It was just useful.' So Buddha has defined
truth in a very novel way. He says, 'That which is useful is true.' His definition is very
pragmatic, practical, very scientific. So is the attitude of the NAQSHBANDIS.
An ancient parable, a famous NAQSHBANDI parable, is that of a father who called
his children out of a building which was on fire. When they ignored him, he called
them to come and get the toy cars he had brought for them -- whereupon they came
running. He did not have any toy cars but he saved his children's lives.
Now he lied. The children, small children, must have been playing inside the house.
They must have become too involved in their play to see that the house was on fire.
But the father was outside and he saw the danger and he called them. He shouted.
'Come out!' But they were so involved in their game that they didn't listen. He
invented a lie. He said, 'Look! I have brought the toy cars that you have always
wanted. So many, and so beautiful! Come on and take your toy cars!' And they all
came running out. There were no toy cars, the father was lying -- but he saved their
lives.
Now this is a design, this is a NAQSHBANDI, this is a device. It is neither true nor
false, but it is useful, tremendously useful. Will you say that when the father lied, he
committed a sin? -- because all religions say, 'Be true. Speak the truth.'
It happens many times, because you are all children and the house is on fire and you
won't listen. You are so involved in your games. Somebody is involved in money
games, somebody in politics, somebody in something else. People are so much
involved. To their very end they will remain clouded by their dreams and desires.
And the house is constantly on fire. Because you are living in death, the house is
constantly on fire. Any moment you will be gone. But you are so much into your
games that the Master has to devise something.
It happened....
A man used to come to a great saint and he would always ask, 'Sir, one thing puzzles
me. You are so innocent, so pure, how is this possible? Suspicion arises in my mind
that maybe you simply pretend. In this world of corruption, how can one be so pure
and innocent and so virgin? How can one avoid being corrupted by the world? Maybe
deep down you still carry the same thing but on the surface you have maintained it,
you have maintained it well.'
One day the man came. He again started to say the same thing. And the Master said,
'Listen, there is something more important to be said to you. Just show me your hand.'
He looked at his hand, became very sad, closed his eyes and started to cry. The man
said, 'What is the matter? Why are you crying, Sir? I have never seen you crying.'
He said, 'I am crying because only seven days are left. Within seven days you will be
gone. Your lifeline is cut. Next Sunday you will die. That's why I am crying. Now you
can ask whatsoever you want to ask. You wanted to ask something?'
The man said, 'I have forgotten. You have disturbed me very much. Only seven days?'
Now this Master was so loved by people, so much respected, that there was no reason
to suspect that he would tell a lie.
The man rushed home, fell ill, didn't move from his bed for seven days, was sinking
every day, stopped eating, could not sleep. The relatives gathered. On the seventh day
they were just waiting, because the Master had said that as the sun sets, he would die.
And there was just half an hour to go. The sun was just coming down, coming down,
and relatives and friends and the wife and the children were crying and the man was
just sinking into death.
Then the Master came and said to the man, 'I have one question to ask. In these seven
days have you committed anything that you used to call sin, impurity, corruption, this
and that? Did any idea come into your mind, any worldly idea?'
The man opened his eyes with great difficulty. He said, 'What are you talking about? I
am dying! How can a man have any ideas of sin or of the world when he is dying?
Only death was there around me. It was coming closer. In these seven days there was
not a single worldly desire in me. I was only thinking of God. I was praying, repeating
God's name.'
The Master laughed. He said, 'You can get up. You are not going to die! That was only
a design to show you why I am pure. Death surrounds me continuously. What does it
matter whether it is coming in seven days or seven years or seventy years? It doesn't
matter. It is only a question of time. It is coming -- that much is certain -- it Is coming.
When death is coming, this becomes very, very clear to your consciousness. Life goes
through a great change, a radical change.'
The man started laughing. He said, 'You played a joke!' He was perfectly okay; within
minutes he was okay. But he said, 'Master, one thing, how could you lie?'
The Master said, 'It is neither a lie, nor a truth; it is a design, a NAQSHBANDI.'
Maps have been invented to help you. They are arbitrary. Never become too obsessed
with a map. Use it if you can; if you cannot, forget all about it. It has nothing valuable
in it beyond its use.
Man has been thrown into the world for a certain reason. That has to be understood.
Christianity has given the idea to the whole world that man has been thrown into the
world as a punishment. That is a very stupid idea. Not only is the idea stupid, it makes
even God look stupid, arrogant and mad. He threw man into the world for SUCH a
small thing! -- because Adam disobeyed him? Each child disobeys the father, has to
disobey the father. In fact, by disobeying the father, he tries to define himself. That is
the only way to define himself. Each child has to go against the parents some day or
other. If he never goes against the parents he will never be. Then he will be just a
sha-dow. He has to rebel; he has to say no. Remember, 'no-saying' is nothing but an
effort to define yourself. When you go on saying yes, you lose definition.
Adam and Eve were doing what each child has to do. It is so psychological. God said,
'Don't eat the fruit of this tree, this tree of knowledge.' If you ask the Sufis they will
say that this is a NAQSHBANDI, it is a design. God is provoking them to eat the fruit
of this tree. He is not prohibiting; in fact, he is provoking. In the Garden of Eden there
were millions of trees. If Adam had been left to himself to find the tree of knowledge
he might not have found it yet. It was only one tree in those millions of trees; nothing
was special about it. It was just an ordinary apple tree. There were millions of apple
trees like it but this was poisoned by knowledge.
Why did God say to Adam, 'Don't eat the fruit of this tree?' Christians think that he
wanted to discipline Adam, that he wanted him to be obedient. That is not true. Ask
the NAQSHBANDIS, because they are the people who know how to design things.
They are the designers. They know that God designed the first design. He provoked
Adam, challenged Adam. He created the idea and the desire to rebel by forcing an
absurd commandment -- 'Don't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.' He created a
longing in Adam and Eve.
They must have dreamed about this tree from then onwards. They must have gone
around the tree again and again. They must have touched the fruit, they must have
smelled the fruit, they must have been waiting for the right moment. They must have
keen hesitant. Each child is afraid -- they must also have been afraid. Each child is.
Many times they must have gone and come back, many times they must have been on
the verge of committing disobedience, rebellion, and they must have become
frightened -- 'If God comes to know, then what?' But how long can you resist this
desire to say no? -- because the whole thing is a design. Once Adam says no to God
he becomes himself. By saying no he defines himself.
That's why there is an age when children say no to every-thing. You say anything and
they will say no. They are defining themselves. They are saying, 'This is my definition,
this is "I am". You keep aloof. Let me be. This is my space. I don't want to do this.'
Just last night a sannyasin came with her small boy, so small, to take sannyas. I
looked at the boy, and there was Adam in the boy's eyes. He wanted to say no. His
eyes were saying no. His whole body was saying no. And I loved the boy. When I put
the mala on his head he threw it away!
It has to be so. The boy has some spirit, Adam's spirit. He was saving, 'How dare you?
I am myself. I can't be defined by anybody else.' It was not in so many words -- he
had no words -- but in his gesture, his reluctant look, his face, his withdrawing of the
body, his throwing away of the mala.
That's what Adam did. He had to do it to be himself. It was a design from God. This
interpretation has a beauty. The NAQSHBANDIS say it was a design from God to
provoke Adam -- because unless he was provoked, he would never become grown-up.
He had to say no to God so he could go on his way into the world. It is not a
punishment, not at all. God is not arrogant.
When this child threw away the mala, I loved him as I have never loved any other
small child. He has some courage. So small, but such great courage! So tiny, but ready
to fight with the whole world! God did not punish Adam; God loved Adam. If Adam
had followed God, there would have been no world, there would have been nobody
here. It is by disobeying God, by saying no, that man became man, attained to his first
definition, attained to his first feeling of being himself.
God is neither arrogant nor egoistic nor mad. He must have loved and blessed Adam.
That's my feeling too. When Adam was going out of the Garden of Eden there must
have been a showering of God's blessing on him. Now he is going on his way. That's
what every father would like his children to do. One day they should go on their own
way; they should seek and search and be. How long can you remain protected? You
have to go into insecurity, you have to go into sin, you have to go into the world. It is
not expulsion, it is Adam's rebellion. And it is not punishment, it is well-planned and
designed. It is by this design that God created the world.
Now Christians have not understood it at all and they have made a very foolish story
out of it -- that God condemned Adam.
And then the second part of the story follows naturally. Then Jesus said yes to God
and was accepted back again. Now Christians say that because Adam committed a sin
of disobedience, the whole humanity suffered. And because Jesus accepted God again,
said yes totally, the whole humanity was saved through Jesus.
This too is meaningless. How can you suffer for Adam's sin? And how can you be
saved by Jesus being saved? Then where do you come in? What is your responsibility?
Then you are just puppets. Adam committed a sin and you suffer. You have not been a
participant in it. You don't know anything about Adam -- when he was, whether he
ever was or not -- and you are suffering because Adam committed a sin.
This is unjust. Somebody committed a sin thousands of years ago, and you are
suffering, you are being punished for it. This is very far-fetched justice! It doesn't look
right. And then, two thousand years ago Jesus said yes to God, and was saved; and
you are saved in Jesus being saved. So somebody commits a sin and you become a
sinner, and somebody becomes a saint and you become a saint. Where do you come in?
Then what is your responsibility? Then you are nothing. The whole drama is complete
between Adam and Jesus. Whether you are or you are not makes no difference. If
there had been no Adam you would not be here, and if there had been no Jesus you
would never have been saved. All foolish attitudes. You are neither punished because
of Adam nor are you saved because of Jesus. You will be whatsoever you are going to
be by your own self, by your own responsibility. You will either miss or get, but it will
be your responsibility.
The NAQSHBANDIS say that this was the first NAQSHBANDI, the first design that
God created. He created a situation in which Adam rebelled. And since then man has
been rebelling. Man has to go into the darkness to come back home. It is not a
punishment. Man is not thrown into the world to be punished; man is thrown into the
world to learn, to discover, to be.
Robert Frost used to pray every night. I loved his prayer. He used to say to God, 'God,
if you forgive me my petitions against you, I promise you that I will forgive you your
great sin against me. I promise that I will forgive you your great sin against me and
against humanity.'
It is meaningful. If Adam is thought to have committed a sin, it is a small sin. And
Adam is a child -- he can be forgiven. But what about God? He provoked him. What
about God? He created the whole situation. If Adam's act is thought to be a sin, then it
is a small sin, a pecadillo, a very small sin. But what about God? Was he not aware of
one very small thing a thing any psychologist knows about? -- that is, if you provoke,
if you challenge, you create a situation. He provoked Adam -- that was his great sin. If
Adam's sin is a sin, God's sin is greater.
But neither is a sin. I don't call Adam's sin a small sin and I don't call God's sin a great
sin. It was simply a design to help Adam to move on his own, to stand on his own.
Have you watched? When trees bloom and the fruit comes and the seeds ripen, every
tree tries to send its seeds far away -- with the wind, with the birds. And if the tree
sometimes feels that the wind will not be able to take the seed, that the seed is heavy,
then it creates devices, NAQSHBANDIS, to send the seed far away -- because if the
seed falls underneath the big tree it wi never grow. It has to be on its own; it has to
find its own space.
There are trees which grow their seeds with a small bit OF cotton around them. The
seed is heavy but the cotton is weightless; the wind can take the cotton away. Then the
seed will also go away, far away, and will fall onto some open space where it can
become a great tree.
That's what God did with Adam. He tried to push him away -- because you can grow
only when you are on your own. One day the child has to be sent to the school, one
day the child has to be sent to the hostel, one day the child has to go to the university.
He goes crying and weeping. He does not want to leave the family and the familiar.
He does not want to leave the past, the comfort, the protection, the security, the safety.
He does not want to leave, but he has to be pushed. He has to be thrown into the
world. That's what God did. It was a device.
Once you are thrown into the world you will learn on your own. Many times you will
fail, that's natural, but by failing again and again, some insight will start arising in you.
And that insight will take you back.
Adam came into the world... he had to come. When Adam learns, becomes, attains to
his being, he becomes Christ. Christ is nothing but Adam who has become grown-up.
Now he can go back home. Now God will welcome him there. He has learned. The
world itself is a NAQSHBANDI for people to be.
'Consciousness is not like a thing: solid, complete, full and given.' It has to be learned,
it has to be grown, it has to be guarded. You have to be a gardener of consciousness.
You have to provide water, space, sun rays, fertilisers. You have to protect this small
sprout -- very delicate it is, vulnerable it is, soft it is. It can be crushed by anything.
So remember: 'Consciousness is not like a thing: solid, complete, full and given. It is a
process and a self-creation. It is our continual improvisation based on the rejection of
what it has been up to this moment.'
This has to be understood. Consciousness grows only if you go on rejecting your past.
Ordinarily we cling to the past -- then the consciousness does not grow. Whatsoever
you have learned, forget about it. It is finished. You have learned it; you have
absorbed it. Whatsoever you have been up to now, drop it so that you can be
something more. Never be confined by your past. People who become confined by the
past are the prisoners.
That's what NAQSHBANDI Sufis call the prison, the prison of the past. It has to be
broken every day. Each moment one has to grow out of it.
'To be is to spurn from one what one has been. In so far as one does not do that, one
approximates to a thing and ceases to be a person.' If you don't have any future, if you
only have a past, you are a thing, not a person. A person is one who has a future. A
person is one who is always unburdened by the past, who goes on dropping the past,
who goes on rejecting it. It has been lived already so what is the point of carrying it?
It has been known already, it has been experienced already; there is no need to go on
repeating it. When a person becomes non-repetitive, when he does not go on repeating
the same experience again and again, he grows. Great growth happens.
'Man has the characteristic of self-transcendence.' You have to go beyond whatsoever
you think of as yourself. Always and always you have to leave whatsoever you think
of as yourself; you have to drop it, you have to renounce it.
This is what I call renunciation, sannyas. That's why I give you a new name when you
are initiated -- just to indicate. Again it is a NAQSHBANDI -- it is just to indicate that
your past is finished, that that chapter is closed. Start something new, a rebirth. Be
born again. It is just a metaphor. If you understand it well, you can make great use of
it. And from the moment you become a sannyasin, you have to remember it
continuously. Every night when you go to bed to sleep, close your eyes and close the
chapter that has passed. Be finished with it. Say to yourself that the past is no more.
Consciously, deliberately, drop it, renounce it, so that the next morning you can be
fresh again, clean again, young again, innocent again. Only then does consciousness
grow.
'Man has the characteristic of self-transcendence.' He is as something to be surpassed.
In plain language, man is free -- or rather, man is freedom. Freedom is the essence of
man, or, in man existence precedes essence. Man first is, only afterwards is this or that.
Man must create for himself his own essence, his own soul, his own being. Man is a
continual birth -- by himself, to himself, through himself, for himself.'
This is the task, the life task, that faces everybody. And for this you need maps. All
religions are different kinds of maps. And remember never to mix maps. If you are
using one map, use it with great alertness, awareness, dedication, commitment. Don't
mix it with other maps because different maps have been made by different people
with different ideas behind them. They are not planned on the same lines. One map
may be a road map, another map may be a railway line, another may be a political
map showing boundaries, another may be a religious map showing something else,
another may be a geographical map showing something else. All maps are different
devices by different people. Don't mix the maps, otherwise you will become confused.
If you are using one map, one map is enough.
That's why I am very much against the efforts that go on in the world to synthesise all
religions. They cannot be synthesised. It will be as stupid and as foolish as somebody
synthesising chemistry and psychology and physiology and physics and biology and
history and geography and religion. It will be as absurd. The different religions are
different maps showing different territories, different ways.
Yes, there is ultimately one truth, they all arrive at the same goal -- but they start from
different standpoints. Their starting points are different. The ultimate arriving point
is-the same but there is no need to make a synthesis of the starting points. otherwise
you will be confused. So whatsoever map appeals to you -- listen deeply to your heart
-- whatsoever map appeals to you, then be dedicated to it, be committed to it.
Before we enter into the parable, three things have to be understood. There are three
pillars of Sufism. This is a NAQSHBANDI, a design, to help you. This is a kind of
map. The first is ISLAM, the second is IMAN and the third is IHSAN.
ISLAM means surrender -- surrender of the ego, surrender of the past, surrender of
the so-called self you have come to believe you are -- utter surrender. That is the first
basic pillar. ISLAM IS a beautiful word. It has many other meanings too, but the basic
is surrender, SAMARPAN. The second meaning of ISLAM IS peace. When one
surrenders, there is peace -- because when you surrender, all conflict disappears.
When you have surrendered to a Master or to a school or to a certain map, you are in a
great peace. Now you are not fighting. You have found somebody you can trust. You
have found somebody who knows the way. You have found somebody who has the
light in him. You can follow. In great trust, peace arises. How can there be conflict
when trust has happened, when surrender has happened?.
The third meaning is silence. Peace means that now there is no more conflict in life,
no more choosing in life -- this way or that. 'Should I go this way or that? Should I do
this or that?' Once you have chosen a Master, peace arises because now he is there to
tell you what to do and what not to do. And your commitment is total; your
involvement is utter; you need not think about it any more. You can put aside the
thinking mind. Peace comes. And silence. .Silence is another dimension of peace.
Have you watched? Sometimes, whenever it has happened to you -- you have
surrendered in love to somebody -- suddenly there is great silence inside. Not a
thought stirs. Not a ripple arises. Outside there may be great noise -- the traffic, the
aeroplane, the train -- but when you are in silence, suddenly even the noise of the train
and the aeroplane and the traffic has no distraction for you. Even in them you will
find silence. When you are silent, you will find silence everywhere.
In love a very small surrender happens because in love you are in love with somebody
who is equal to you. It cannot be a very great surrender. You know the woman you are
surrendered to or the man you are surrendered to, but he is just like you.
When you surrender to a Master, you are surrendering to something which is far away
and yet close by. A Master is a ladder. The first rung is very close by and the farthest
rung is very far away, high in the skies, whispering with the clouds. When you
surrender, one part, one end, of the ladder is in your hands and the other end of the
ladder is with God. A Master is man-god. He looks like you, exactly like you, and yet
he is not like you. He has arrived. He has found. The enquiry is no longer there; the
search is no more there. He has no desires left. All is fulfilled.
Islam is the first pillar of Sufism -- surrender, peace, silence.
The second pillar is IMAN. IMAN means trust, faith -- not belief. Belief is in
concepts; faith is in presence. If what I say appeals to you and you trust it, that will be
belief. If what I am attracts you like a magnet, if it pulls you like some unknown
energy source, then it is trust. When you believe in a logical statement, it is belief;
when you believe in the presence of a person, it is trust. Trust is personal; belief is
conceptual. IMAN means trust.
Sufis say that you cannot work alone. Without a Master it is almost impossible.
Without a Master you will be like an accidental being, haphazardly going this way
and that. You can drive yourself crazy more easily than you can become enlightened
alone -- hence IMAN is needed, trust is needed.
And remember one thing: never for a single moment think, as so many people think,
that those who surrender or those who trust, are weak people. No, not at all. Only
strong people can surrender and only strong people can trust. Weaklings are always
afraid. It is not for the cowards to trust. Trust needs courage; trust means risk. Trust
means that now you are opening yourself to somebody totally and you don't know
what is going to happen.
He may exploit you, he may destroy you; you are becoming vulnerable. Who knows
what this man is going to do to you? You are becoming unprotected; you are taking all
guards away. You are opening your armour for this man, and you don't know what is
going to happen. A coward, a weakling, cannot do it. So don't think for a single
moment that those who surrender are cowards or weak. No, not at all. Just the reverse
is the case: only the very strong and powerful people can surrender. IMAN IS for
those who are courageous.
The first meaning of IMAN IS faith, trust, SHRADDHA. The second meaning of
IMAN IS religion -- not sect, but religiousness. What is religiousness? The
dissatisfaction with the visible is religiousness -- dissatisfaction with the visible, with
the tangible; dissatisfaction with the world as it is; a discontent with things as they are.
With that discontent, with that divine discontent, a great longing arises in you to
search for truth, to search for the meaning of life, to search for the source of life:
From where does it all come? To where does it all go? What is the foundation of this
whole mystery?
That is religiousness. It has nothing to do with any sect -- Hindu, Mohammedan,
Christian. A religious man is a religious man -- he is not concerned with being Hindu,
Mohammedan or Christian. You can see that quality. When you see a religious man
you will not feel that he is a Mohammedan or a Hindu or a Christian, you will simply
feel that he is religious. He has a flavour of religiousness around him. His eyes have a
shine not of this world and his heart has a beat not of this world. He walks on the
earth but his feet do not touch the ground. He is here and not here. He is drunk with
something else -- you cannot see what he is drunk with. His alcohol is not visible; his
wine is not that which can be bought in the marketplace. He has produced a wine in
his innermost core and he is drunk with it. You will see it in the way he walks, the
way he sits, the way he talks, the way he relates and communicates. There is a
drunkenness.
If you are available to him you may start getting high just by being in contact with
him -- a contact-high. Just because he is so turned on, you will start feeling turned on.
That is religiousness, that is IMAN -- what Hindus call DHARMA and what Lao Tzu
calls Tao and what the Jews call TORAH. That is the most fundamental law of
religion -- to be drunk with the unknown, with the invisible; to be drunk with
something that is not of this world, not available here; to be drunk with something
penetrating from the beyond. And if you have seen Sufis, you will be surprised -- they
are the most drunk people in the world.
And the third meaning of IMAN IS commitment, involvement -- not only by thought
but in deed too. It is a conversion, it is an initiation. If you feel that the meaning is
missing, then just by thinking you are not going to find it. You will have to commit
yourself to it in your totality; your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, all will have
to be committed to it.
That's the meaning of sannyas too. It is IMAN. YOU are not only supposed to believe
in what I say, you are not only to pay lip-service to what I say -- you have to become
that, you have to represent that, you have to bring it to aliveness in your being, you
have to live it. It should not remain a philosophical thing; it should become your very
life. Only then, and ONLY then. one arrives -- otherwise not.
And the third thing is IHSAN. IHSAN means authenticity. sincerity. Unless your
effort is sincere, nothing is going to happen. You cannot deceive God. You can
deceive everybody, you can deceive even yourself -- but you cannot deceive God, you
cannot deceive the whole. There is no way to do that. You have to be authentic. You
have to be true.
It happens every day. Somebody comes and wants to become a sannyasin, and I look
in his eyes and I look in his heart, and I see it is not going to be authentic. He thinks,
'Why not try it? I am here for two, three months -- I can become a sannyasin. And
then when I go back to Chicago, who bothers? I can change the dress, put the mala
away in a suitcase. If something happens, good; if nothing happens, nothing is lost.
Why not give it a try?'
If you give it a try, nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen because
you are not in it. Something is possible only when you are really in it, when you are
ready to sacrifice everything to it -- your prestige, your name, and everything.
Just the other night a sannyasin was here. She is really interested in finding out the
meaning of life. She has been a sannyasin for one year but she has not used her new
name at all. Now she started feeling a little guilty. She told me, 'I have not used the
new name at all.' It is not a question of names. If you are not totally in it, then things
will not happen, and when they don't happen you will think, 'What was the point of
taking sannyas? Drop it, because nothing is happening.' And it is you who are
responsible. Things can happen only when you are totally in it, when it is a
life-and-death thing.
When the name I have given to you becomes your reality, when the way I have told
you to live and be, becomes your only way, then things are going to happen, then
nobody can prevent them from happening -- but never before that.
Now I know this sannyasin -- Yama is her name. She is a beautiful woman, really in
search -- but half-heartedly. So she cannot go away because half of her heart is with
me, and she cannot enter into me totally because half of her heart is still thinking of
other things. Now she will be in difficulty; she will be in a kind of schizophrenia -split.
IHSAN means don't be split. If you don't want to see God. forget about it. Be in The
world; let the world be your only reality. One day or other you will be frustrated. Then
the search for God will start. But there is no need to go right now. If you are not ripe
yet, it is better to remain in the world. The world will make you ripe for God. There is
no hurry. If you are really ready, then don't ride on two horses. Then choose. I hat is
the meaning of IHSAN -- authenticity, sincerity.
The second meaning of IHSAN is virtue -- inner virtue, not imposed from the outside.
When a person is authentic, a kind of virtue arises in him. You can see the authentic
person. The truth is very clear in his being. Everything that he does is very clear. He
has a direction, a sense of direction, because his is a sincere search. He knows what he
is doing so he does only that which is going to help his ultimate goal, and he drops all
that which is irrelevant. He will not waste a single moment of his time and energy on
anything else.
If you are really a sannyasin then whatsoever you do will be a help towards your goal,
your samadhi. If you are playing music, you will play with the idea that it will be part
of your meditation. If you are dancing, you will dance to create a more meditative
space around you. If you are talking to somebody, you will talk only about things
which are going to help; you will not be distracted by rubbish. You will simply say,
'This is not for me. I am not interested in it.' You will read only those books which are
going to help. You will not waste your time in reading stupid novels. You will not go
to any movie and you will not listen to any radio programme.
Your life will become more and more directed, channellised. You have one purpose,
and that purpose is continuously there -- like a thread running in everything you are
doing. Only then is there a possibility, only then do you become worthy enough. You
deserve God's descending into you.
When it is seen that your total effort is directed towards God, that your whole life has
become worship, it is IHSAN. It is what Buddhists called SHEELA, virtue.
And the third meaning of IHSAN is totality, wholeness. Whatsoever you do, don't
hold back. Go into it utterly, don't remain a spectator -- because it is only by being a
participant that one comes to know anything. Spectators simply go on missing.
If you are dancing, dance; and in that moment let the dance become your all. Put all
that you have into it. Not even a small part of you should remain a watcher. You
should become involved utterly, absolutely. Those few moments, when you are
absolutely in something, are the moments when you are closest to God. Those are the
moments of bliss and benediction.
These are the three pillars of Islam and Sufism. These three pillars have to be imbibed.
And they contain all that is needed for any religious person -- Sufi or not Sufi. These
three pillars are very essential. This is a design, a NAQSHBANDI. If you can have
ISLAM -- surrender, peace, silence; IMAN -- faith, religiousness, commitment;
IHSAN -- authenticity, virtue, totality .. . you have the map.
Now this small story:
A SUFI OF THE ORDER OF THE NAQSHBANDIS WAS ASKED, 'YOUR
ORDER'S NAME MEANS LITERALLY "THE DESIGNERS". WHAT DO YOU
DESIGN, AND WHAT USE IS IT? '
HE SAID, 'WE DO A GREAT DEAL OF DESIGNING, AND IT IS MOST USEFUL.
HERE IS A PARABLE OF ONE SUCH FORM:
'UNJUSTLY IMPRISONED, A TINSMITH WAS ALLOWED TO RECEIVE A RUG
WOVEN BY HIS WIFE. HE PROSTRATED HIMSELF UPON THE RUG DAY
AFTER DAY TO SAY HIS PRAYERS, AND AFTER SOME TIME HE SAID TO
HIS JAILERS, "I AM POOR AND WITHOUT HOPE, AND YOU ARE
WRETCHEDLY PAID. BUT I AM A TINSMITH. BRING ME TIN AND TOOLS
AND I SHALL MAKE SMALL ARTEFACTS WHICH YOU CAN SELL IN THE
MARKET, AND WE WILL BOTH BENEFIT."
'THE GUARDS AGREED TO THIS, AND PRESENTLY THEY AND THE
TINSMITH WERE BOTH MAKING A PROFIT, FROM WHICH THEY BOUGHT
FOOD AND COMFORTS FOR THEMSELVES.
'THEN, ONE DAY, WHEN THE GUARDS WENT TO THE CELL, THE DOOR
WAS OPEN, AND HE WAS GONE.
'MANY YEARS LATER, WHEN THIS MAN'S INNOCENCE HAD BEEN
ESTABLISHED, THE MAN WHO HAD IMPRISONED HIM ASKED HIM HOW
HE HAD ESCAPED, WHAT MAGIC HE HAD USED. HE SAID, "IT IS A
MATTER OF DESIGN, AND DESIGN WITHIN DESIGN. MY WIFE IS A
WEAVER. SHE FOUND THE MAN WHO HAD MADE THE LOCKS OF THE
CELL DOOR, AND GOT THE DESIGN FROM HIM. THIS SHE WOVE INTO
THE CARPET AT THE SPOT WHERE MY HEAD TOUCHED IN PRAYER FIVE
TIMES A DAY. I AM A METAL-WORKER, AND THIS DESIGN LOOKED TO ME
LIKE THE INSIDE OF A LOCK. I DESIGNED THE PLAN OF THE ARTEFACTS
TO OBTAIN THE MATERIALS TO MAKE THE KEY -- AND I ESCAPED."
'THAT,' SAID THE NAQSHBANDI SUFI, 'IS ONE OF THE WAYS IN WHICH
MAN MAY MAKE HIS ESCAPE FROM THE TYRANNY OF HIS CAPTIVITY.'
Man is imprisoned, imprisoned in his own ego. The ego is the prison and if you want
to get out of the prison, this is the map: ISLAM, IMAN, IHSAN. If you can manage
these three things you have the whole design to get out.
It is a beautiful parable, a simple parable -- but significant.
How can you come out of your present prison -- out of where you are? You will have
to ask someone who knows.
The escaped prisoner said,
'IT IS A MATTER OF DESIGN, AND DESIGN WITHIN DESIGN. MY WIFE IS A
WEAVER. SHE FOUND THE MAN WHO HAD MADE THE LOCKS OF THE
CELL DOOR.... '
There are always men on the earth who have found the man who has male the locks of
the cell door. These are the people we call Masters. These are the people who have
encountered God -- who made the first design, who provoked Adam into rebellion.
These are the people who have come to see the whole story as it is, who have looked
into the whole story of how man enters into the world, why, and how he can go back
into the world. Why does Jesus get out of the world, why is he saved and not others?
What is the difference? Jesus surrenders, drops his ego... that is the meaning of the
Christian cross. He died as an ego, he dies as himself, and is reborn as Christ. Jesus is
no more, Jesus dies; Christ is born.
In fact, to use these two words together is not right. To call Jesus 'Christ' is not right -because they were never together. There was a time when there was Jesus but there
was no Christ. Then a time came when there was Christ but there was no Jesus. They
were never together. They can't be together. Jesus is Adam lost in the world -- not
knowing how he is caught there, getting more and more entangled in the ego. Christ is
the consciousness that has understood, that has become alert and has started moving
back towards the home -- a surrendering.
Adam said no. No creates ego, self. Jesus said yes. Yes drops the ego. Yes is ISLAM,
surrender, SAMARPAN. BY saying yes, the whole direction of his life changed. He
started moving back towards the Garden of Eden, towards God's garden.
'IT IS A MATTER OF DESIGN, AND DESIGN WITHIN DESIGN. MY WIFE IS A
WEAVER. SHE FOUND THE MAN WHO HAD MADE THE LOCKS OF THE
CELL DOOR, AND GOT THE DESIGN FROM HIM. THIS SHE WOVE INTO
THE CARPET AT THE SPOT WHERE MY HEAD TOUCHED IN PRAYER FIVE
TIMES A DAY.'
Her idea was that if her husband would be praying on the rug five times a day -- how
long could he go on missing? That's why I go on speaking every day. How long can
you go on missing? Your head will be touching every day, every day; one day or other
you will start looking at the design -- 'What is the matter? What is going on?' One day
you will become alert and awake.
'I AM A METAL WORKER AND THIS DESIGN LOOKED TO ME LIKE THE
INSIDE OF A LOCK. I DESIGNED THE PLAN OF THE ARTEFACTS TO
OBTAIN THE MATERIALS TO MAKE THE KEY -- AND I ESCAPED.'
'THAT,' SAID THE NAQSHBANDI SUFI, 'IS ONE OF THE WAYS IN WHICH
MAN MAY MAKE HIS ESCAPE FROM THE TYRANNY OF HIS CAPTIVITY.'
The captivity is of our own making. It is our ego -- and we can drop it.
So meditate over these three words: ISLAM, IMAN, IHSAN.
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #14
Chapter title: A Singular Mess
9 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709090
ShortTitle:
SUFIS214
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 96 mins
The first question:
Question 1
YOU SAY THERE IS NOWHERE TO GO. TO GO SOMEWHERE IS TO
PERPETUATE THE ILLUSION.
AND SOMETIMES I SEE IT....
AND YOU SAY RELIGIOUSNESS IS TO REJECT THE KNOWN AND ONE
SHOULD NOT STAND ON THE CROSSROADS BUT DARE, AND COMMIT
MISTAKES....
YOU SAY IT IS ALREADY THE CASE -- THE SEEKER IS THE SOUGHT....
AND YOU SAY RELIGION IS SELF-CREATION, CONSTANT REBELLION....
THE COMBINATION AND THE HARMONY OF ALL THESE THINGS
BETWEEN THEM IS SINGULARLY MESSY.
That's true. Have you ever witnessed a childbirth? It is messy, singularly messy.
This is the birth of a new consciousness. You are witnessing something rare. It
happens only once in thousands of years. Whenever something new is born, it is
messy. You can ask the scientists what they say about the birth of the world. It was
utterly messy, it was chaos. The cosmos has come out of a chaos.
And before I can create you I have to destroy you. I have to dismantle the old
completely. Naturally, when the old is dismantled and the new has not yet been
created, there is a period, a transition period, where everything will be messy.
But if the chaos is going to give birth to a star, it has to be welcomed. Order, system,
is not always good, is not always beneficial. Disorder is not always harmful. One has
to look into each case to determine it. It depends. If destruction is the goal, then
destruction is violence. It is ugly. If creation is the goal, then who has eVer been able
to create anything without destruction? You have to be destroyed.
And that's my device -- to give you contradictory statements. That is my design. It is a
NAQSHBANDI. I contradict myself so much for a certain reason: if you go on
listening to me, sooner or later you will stop believing. That is the whole purpose -because you will know it is meaningless to believe this man. Tomorrow he will
contradict himself. Before you are established in a belief he will contradict it. He will
not leave you settled in any shelter. Once you know this, slowly, slowly, the mind's
old habit of clinging to a certain concept disappears. It can disappear only if you are
continuously contradicted.
If I am very consistent I will become your belief, I will become your church, I will
become your religion. And I don't want to become your church or your dogma or your
religion -- I want to become your salvation. your liberation, your freedom. The goal is
utterly different. If you are seeking a kind of belief then you are in trouble.
That is why Anand Veda -- who has asked this question -- is in trouble. He must be
seeking some security, some idea. He wants some idea to cling to; he wants a shelter
to hide himself behind. He does not want to face the messy life -- life as it is. He
wants to prepare, he wants to be prepared to meet life with ideas, ideologies, concepts,
philosophies. He wants to go to see God with a fully ready-made mind.
OTHERWISE GOD IS messy. He is utterly chaos. To meet God unprepared is to
disappear in him. But that is the only meeting, there is no other. If you are not ready to
disappear into that chaos, you will not meet God. God is not a concept.
But you want a concept, you want a clear-cut philosophy so that you can depend on it
and you can fight in the name of that philosophy and you can argue in the name of
that philosophy.
Now it will be very difficult to argue for me. It is impossible to argue for me. You
cannot. Anybody can see that my statements are contradictory -- no great insight is
needed to see that. Any stupid person can see that my statements are contradictory.
Intelligence will be needed to see that my statements are not about truth, they are
devices, designs, to destroy something in your mind. Great intelligence will be needed
to see that.
I will not allow you ever to settle with me; you will have to move. Every day I will
create and every day I will destroy. Sooner or later the understanding will dawn on
you that there is no need to cling. Because you cling, it hurts when something is taken
away again. So why cling in the first place? Not clinging is freedom.
These contradictory statements are not meant to be statements about truth -- no, not at
all. Truth cannot be said. Nobody has ever said it, nobody will ever say it. It is not
possible. Truth cannot be confined to the word. And I am not saying the truth, I am
simply creating a space in you -- the space I call the unclinging, unattached mind, the
contentless mind. Once that state is there you will know what truth is. I cannot say
what truth is but I can create a device, a design, for you in which you will be able to
see the truth.
When you listen to me, if you listen as if you are listening to a philosopher, you will
miss me. If you listen to me as if you are listening to a theologian, then you will miss
me. If you listen to me as if I am a logician, then you will miss me. I use logic only to
destroy logic, I use words only to destroy words, I use scriptures only to destroy
scriptures. The more silently, intelligently you listen to me, the more this fact will
slowly, slowly become very, very clear to you. In that clarity there is vision; in that
transparency, in that silence, when not a single idea is there in your mind about truth,
truth comes in.
So these statements are contradictory. Contradiction and paradox is my design.
And I am not saying to you, 'Do this, don't do that.' That's how you again create
trouble for yourself. You listen to me with a deep desire to do something. So when
you hear me saying 'Do this' -- or you interpret it as if I am saying 'Do this' -- you
catch hold of it immediately; you start preparing to do it. And the next moment I say
that it is wrong. Then you are at a loss. You were just ready to jump into an action and
before you have even acted, it is no longer right.
I am trying to help you to drop all kinds of desires -- including the desire that you
have to attain to truth, that you have to attain to nirvana; including the desire that you
have to be desireless.
Why are you in such a hurry to do something? Why can't you be, simply be? Being is
sanity and salvation. The moment you start doing, you get confused, because
whatsoever you do -- and I am saying it unconditionally, WHATSOEVER -- it will
create more ego in you. Doing creates the doer and ego is the whole problem. The ego
has to be dropped and the ego always waits for the opportunity to do something.
When I am trying to explain to you what meditation is, I am doing one thing and you
are preparing for something else. I am trying to talk to you; I am simply sharing my
insight into meditation, my experience of meditation. I am trying to do just one thing:
to make you alert about what this state of meditation is. While I am talking about the
state, you are planning inside how to attain it, what to do about it. You exist in a
totally different dimension.
I say meditation cannot be done -- one can be in meditation but one cannot do it. It is
just like love. You can be in love but what can you do about it? Either it is or it is not.
Listening to me, you go on interpreting, reducing everything that I say into how to do
it. I am saying to you that if you can simply listen to me, that will bring enlightenment.
There is no need to do anything else. lust by hearing it, just by seeing what is
transpiring here between me and you, just by being with me, you will become
enlightened -- not by doing anything.
But that you don't like very much because that does not give you the ego. If
enlightenment happens just by being with me, then who are you? Then what are you?
Then what have you done? Then how can you brag about it? It will be a gift. You will
have to be thankful for it, you will have to be grateful for it. You cannot go into the
world saying that you have done it. How can you say, 'I have done it?' It has nothing
to do with your doing or you.
No, you are not much interested in that. You are interested in doing it, achieving it,
attaining it, so that you can say that you have attained it. But how can you attain
enlightenment? You are the barrier to it, the only barrier.
Enlightenment comes when you are not. It is available right now; it is all around.
Enlightenment is the stuff that existence is made of. It is showering in the sunrays, it
is singing in the birds, it is dancing in the trees. It is in me, it is in you. You just have
to come to a point where you are not doing anything -- and suddenly you see the fact
of it, the radiant presence of it. But it happens only when you are not in a moment of
doing. Doing, you become concerned; doing, you go outward. Non-doing, you are
suddenly inside yourself. Doing is the way to go outside yourself; non-doing is the
way to be where you should be, to be where you really are. Doing takes you into the
future in time; non-doing allows you to relax into eternity.
Paradox is my way -- so that you will never be able to cling to anything I say. And
you will be grateful one day that I was not consistent, because with a consistent man
you can be never in that dimension called enlightenment. With a consistent man you
will become a follower, with a consistent man you will become very logical,
philosophical. You will have beautiful ideas to propound to the world, you will have a
good, established, systematic mind. But that has nothing to do with enlightenment.
You can become enlightened only with an utterly inconsistent man.
And when you are able to see what I am doing here then you will be surprised that all
my statements are inconsistent and yet there is a consistency in my being. And that
consistency is that I am continuously paradoxical, consistently paradoxical,
consistently inconsistent. That consistency you will see one day.
On the surface I will say many things and each thing will be against other things and
you will not be allowed to possess any idea. I am here to take all ideas from you, not
to give you more ideas. As it is, you have already more than enough.
The second question:
Question 2
THE THEORY THAT WE HAVE TO PUSH, FORCE AND KICK OURSELVES -IS.THIS TRUE? I HATE FIGHTING MYSELF.
Look at the question. I go on saying to you that truth is not somewhere else, it is here.
You have not to struggle your way towards it. It is through the struggle that you are
missing it. You are not to push the river. By pushing the river you will never reach
anywhere. You will simply get tired and exhausted.
By pushing the river you are only creating the possibility of your utter failure. You
cannot fight with the river. The river is huge -- life's river, the river of existence, is so
huge -- and you are so tiny. You are just a ripple in the ocean -- a ripple trying to fight
with the ocean, trying to direct the ocean, trying to achieve a private goal. It is simply
ridiculous. And all struggle makes you ridiculous; all struggle makes you tired,
exhausted, dull, sad, miserable.
But one thing is there in the struggle -- that thing is that you feel you are. The ego
feels very good. You are fighting, you are giving a good fight. Maybe you cannot win
but nobody can say that you were a coward, nobody can say that you didn't give a
good fight. Maybe you cannot win, or who knows, maybe you can win -- the mind
goes on thinking in these ways. Maybe others have not won but you may be the
exception. Maybe it is left for you to do what others have not done. Give it a good try.
The ego will feel good -- you are doing something. The bigger the fight, the bigger the
ego will be. The more you push the river the more you feel you are. Against the river
you feel 'I am'. The feeling of 'I am' always comes when you are against something.
The more you fight and protest, the more you struggle, the more you will feel that you
are -- defined, well-defined.
Take the other as an enemy and he becomes your definition; take the other as a friend
and your boundaries are no longer clear-cut. When you are sitting by the side of your
friend or your beloved, the boundaries are not clear. They are overlapping. You are
overflowing into each other. You don't know where you end and where your friend
begins. And if the friendship is really deep, something immensely beautiful happens -egos disappear.
There is an Indian myth. To understand the myth you will have to understand these
three words....
First the myth. It is the myth of the creation. It is far more beautiful than any other
myth of creation. Hindus say that HE w as alone -- 'he' means God. He was alone but
not really alone, because he was two in one. He was man and woman together. He
was in a deep loving embrace. But he was also one because there was no boundary. It
was not possible to say where he ended and where his beloved began. The man and
the woman were almost one in a cosmic embrace, ecstatically lost into each other.
Eternity passed and he started feeling alone. Naturally, when you don't have a
definition, then it doesn't matter whether you are two, you feel as if you are alone. He
started feeling alone. The aloneness became too heavy so he decided to separate. So
he fell into two parts.
The Sanskrit word for falling apart is PAT -- PAT means falling apart, to fall. From
PAT comes the Hindi word PATAN -- PATAN means fall. He fell in two. And because
of the word PAT, a husband in India is called PATI and a wife is called PATNI. He fell
into two parts -- one part became PATI, husband, the other part became PATNI, wife.
The words PAT, and PATNI are derived from PAT -- he fell in two.
And since then, the myth says, they have been trying to reach each other again,
because now they are feeling very much separated and divorced. Hence the desire for
love, the immense desire for love, the search for the other -- to find someone with
whom you can be one again.
When you are together with a beloved one you lose identities. You cannot feel who
you are because the other is involved, intimately involved, in your being. In love, ego
disappears. When you hate, when you fight, when you struggle, ego arises. When you
are sitting with your enemy you are perfectly well-defined because you are not
overflowing, he is not overflowing. You don't meet anywhere. There is distance.
So the whole thing is that when you struggle, it is not for truth. When you struggle, it
is not for nirvana, enlightenment. When you struggle, the deep urge is to declare
yourself -- that you are powerful, that you are against the world, against existence.
But then there is trouble also. Once you declare 'I am', there arises a great fear that if 'I
am' then there is every possibility that one day 'I may not be'.
You have to understand this. This is one of the basic, fundamental problems each
intelligent person has to face. First you try to declare 'I am' and you feel very good
that 'I am', that 'I am somebody, someone special.' So for your whole life you try to
become special, extraordinary in some way or other: become a famous painter or a
poet or a politician; have more money than anybody else has; make a palace to live in
so everybody feels jealous; in some way prove that you are special, you are not in an
ordinary rut, you are not of the crowd, you are above the crowd; or become an ascetic,
renounce the world; or stand on your head and become a yogi -- but do something so
that the whole world comes to know that you are not ordinary, you are special. People
do so many things so different from each other, but the motive is the same. If you go
deeper you will find the same motive. They want to declare to the world 'I am'.
But then a problem arises. First you have to struggle to prove that you are, and then
once you have proved it, anxiety comes in. The anxiety is that if you are, you can
disappear too. Anything that is, is going towards annihilation. The tree was there
yesterday, now it is gone. The flower was there in the morning; in the evening it has
gone, withered away. The child was alive and now the child is dead. Everywhere you
see that birth is continuously followed by death. - Existence is surrounded by
non-existence. Life seems to be always provoking death -- they seem to be parallel.
Once you have defined yourself clearly -- that 'I am this' -- once you have become this,
suddenly a great trembling arises in your being when you see that you can disappear,
that you will die. How again misery settles in.
First you create the ego, then the fear comes that the ego will disappear. If you don't
create the ego there is no fear of death, it is not possible at all -- because if you are not,
how can you die? If you are not, then there is no death. Death is always of the ego.
Once ego is not there, how can you die?
Just the other night I was reading a case, a very strange case. A child was born in
Philadelphia. It was a premature birth, it was a miscarriage. But it was a rare
phenomenon -- the child was alive although it should not have been alive according to
medical science. It weighed only half a pound, but it was alive.
Now the difficulty was that medical science says you cannot call a child who is born
below one pound, alive -- because it never happens. one pound at least to a must -even the child of one pound is not going to live, but he can be alive for a few days or a
few moments. But this child did not weigh even one pound. So the doctor could not
give him a certificate of birth. But the child was alive and the child lived for two days.
For forty-eight hours the child lived. No birth certificate was issued.. And then the
child died. Now, no death certificate could be issued because when the child was
never born how can you certify that he is dead? But up to now things were simple.
But then the hospital demanded money from the parents for forty-eight hours of care
and medicine and this and that. So the parents said, 'But when the child was never
born and it never died, about whom are you talking? What are you talking about? You
say you cared for forty-eight hours, but for whom did you care?'
Now it was such a complicated case that the hospital authorities had to keep quiet, to
keep mum. They didn't go to the court because it would not have been possible. First
the child should have been given a birth certificate, then a death certificate -- then
money for those forty-eight hours of care would have been possible.
Death is possible only if the ego is born. If the ego is not there, there cannot be any
death. Then life is eternal. Then life has a different quality to it -- a quality of eternity,
of immortality. The ego wants to be immortal. That is not possible. You are immortal
but the ego cannot be immortal. The ego will have to die -- not one but a thousand and
one deaths. And the ego is very, very vulnerable, very delicate. If somebody insults it,
there is a death, a small death. If your business goes bankrupt, there is a small death.
If something goes wrong, a small thing, there is a death. Small things, and you die
many times. The ego is always ready to die because it is a false artefact, it is a pseudo
phenomenon. And to keep it alive you will have to keep pushing the river.
So first conflict, struggle, violence, aggression, are needed for the ego to exist. They
are the fuel, the food for it. But they create misery. And the greater misery comes
when ego has been created -- then fear arises, the fear of death. So the ego simply
suffers. The non-ego state is the state of celebration.
You ask me: THE THEORY THAT WE HAVE TO FORCE, PUSH AND KICK
OURSELVES -- IS THIS TRUE? That's what I have been telling you -- that it is the
most dangerous calamity that has happened to humanity. The idea to force, kick, push,
fight -- that is the most dangerous idea that has poisoned humanity. But if you want to
have an ego that is the only way. You will have to drink the poison. And you will be
suffering and suffering and you will remain in hell, but you will have one good
feeling -- that 'I am'.
George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said.... When he was dying somebody asked
him, 'Where would you like to go? To heaven or hell?' He said, 'That depends. If I can
be first in heaven then I will go to heaven, but I have to be number one. If that is not
possible -- because others have reached before, Jesus and Buddha, etcetera -- if they
have already occupied important positions, if they are sitting by the side of God
already, then I would like to go to hell. But I want to be first anywhere. Even hell is
okay.'
He was joking against the whole human mind. What he was saying is true. You look
deep in your mind -- where would you like to go? To hell, if you can be made a king
there? Or to heaven, if you have to be a servant there? And you will be surprised to
find that you agree with Bernard Shaw. Your mind will say, 'What will you do just
being a servant? Forget all about it. Hell is far better. You will be the king.' Of course
you will suffer but it is worth it. Kings suffer, but it is worth it. Politicians suffer, but
it is worth it. Rich people suffer, but it is worth it. Poor people may not suffer that
much -- they don't suffer, they cannot afford that much suffering. That much suffering
is only possible when you can afford it. Nobodies don't suffer much; there is nothing
to suffer. You cannot humiliate them, they are already standing at the back. You
cannot throw them further back.
Beggars don't suffer that much. How can a beggar suffer as much as Richard Nixon?
It is impossible. Where can you throw a beggar? He is already there -- where can you
throw him? He cannot suffer. But he is a beggar, a nobody. That is continuously like a
knife in his heart -- 'I am nobody.' The beggar also wants to be somebody. Even if it
comes through suffering, it is okay.
One has to look into this dangerous mind -- that it wants to have an ego even though
hell is created in getting it. The mind is not ready to be happy and sane and blissful if
the ego has to be lost. And you all go on doing the same thing. I watch you doing it
every day. For small things you are ready to drop your blissfulness, but you cannot
drop your ego. And you are ready to suffer as much as possible, as much as you can
tolerate, if it helps the ego. Beware of it.
I am not telling you to force your way; there is no need. Relax. Let go. Start flowing
with the stream. Not even swimming is needed; simply let the stream take you. It will
take you to the ocean. It is already going to the ocean, you need not push. Push is
needed when you start trying to go upstream. When you start going against nature
then push, conflict, struggle, is needed. When you are going according to nature there
is no need to struggle -- nature is already going that way. Relax with it. And then there
is a great song in the heart because all misery disappears.
But with misery you also disappear. You cannot have both. Yourself and bliss, that is
not possible. It is not possible because nature does not function that way. You will
have to drop one. Either you drop bliss and you be, or you drop your ego and let bliss
be. It is your choice. And that's why I go on saying again and again that to be
miserable is your choice.
You come and ask me how to drop the misery. You want to drop the misery without
dropping the ego. But that is not possible. And if I say 'Drop the ego' I always see in
your eyes that you think I am changing the subject. You think you have come to ask
how to drop the misery and I am talking about something else. I am saying 'Drop the
ego.' Of course it looks as if it is something else.
Mulla Nasrudin was sitting with a beautiful woman on a full-moon night talking about
great things. He was getting very romantic. But women are very earthly, earthbound,
very practical.
When Mulla was getting really too high the woman said, 'Mulla, your love is okay,
but will you marry me?'
Mulla said, 'Listen, don't change the subject.'
That I have seen many times in your eyes. You bring one problem, and I start talking
about something else. It is only on the surface that it appears to be something else -- to
me it is the cause. You want to drop the misery but you don't want to drop the ego.
And misery cannot be dropped. Misery is a shadow of the ego. Only the ego can be
dropped. Dropping the ego, the misery disappears. That seems to be too great a price
to pay. You say, 'I will think it over.' You are not really interested in dropping the
misery. If you are really interested, then just by seeing the fact you will drop the ego
immediately.
Sigmund Freud has said that man is naturally miserable. I don't believe in it, but about
ninety-nine per cent of people he is right. I cannot deny that. Freud feels that there is
no hope for man; man is basically miserable. His misery cannot be transformed. He
cannot be made happy. Man's demands are impossible -- that's what Freud means.
Man demands the impossible. He wants to have a great ego and he wants to be happy.
It is as if you want the full sun, with no clouds, but still you want the coolness of the
dark night, the silence of the dark night. And you want the full sun in the sky, you
want it sunny. Now you are demanding impossibilities. This is not possible. You can
only pretend. That's what people go on doing. You can pretend. You can sit on the
beach on a sunny day and keep your eyes closed. This is a pretension. If you keep
your eyes closed you create a darkness inside. You have both -- the night and the day.
But this is a pretension. It is really day; the night is just a false illusion you have
created by closing your eyes. The impossible cannot be done.
The sane man always looks into his life to see whether he is trying to do the
impossible. The moment he sees he is trying to do something which cannot be done in
the very nature of things. he drops it. That project is immediately dropped. This I call
sanity.
Insane people are those who go on fighting, not looking at the phenomenon at all -- as
if they are trying to make a square circle. You can go on trying but it will never
happen -- because a circle is a circle and can never be a square. And a square is a
square and can never be a circle. You can go on trying but you will be a failure. The
whole humanity is a failure -- trying to do the impossible.
And you say: I HATE FIGHTING MYSELF. Now that again is a fight. Hate! First
you fight, that is wrong. Then you do a second wrong thing, even deeper -- then you
fight against fight because you hate it. I am teaching acceptance, tathata. I am
teaching you a total acceptance of life as it is -- everything included. Now again you
will see that there is some difficulty.
For example, you see that you go on fighting. Should you accept this too? I say yes.
Only by accepting it will it disappear. Through acceptance, things change. You should
accept everything, even the fight. What can you do? If you are fighting and pushing
the river, you will be creating another problem. If I say 'Don't fight', then you will
start fighting your fight. That will be even more subtle. It will be on a deeper level.
The fight will remain. When I say 'Drop fighting', I am not saying 'Start fighting
against fight'. I am saying 'Accept'. If you feel like pushing the river, push. Don't
create a new fight against it. Go on pushing, just seeing the whole nonsense of it. See
that it is stupid, that what you are doing is stupid. The river cannot be pushed back.
Go on pushing and go on watching and accept it.
In that acceptance, in that awareness, one day suddenly you will find your hands have
stopped. But it is not that you have stopped them -- if you stop them then you have
missed. Then again it has been a fight of stopping. First you were fighting with the
river, then you started fighting with your fighting -- and you are somehow holding
your hands so that they don't start pushing the river again. This will not be a very
beautiful state. It will be tense, there will be anguish, and you will be holding yourself
You will not be flowing, you will not be streaming with joy, you will be repressing.
And at any moment, at any opportunity, you will again start pushing the river. How
long can you repress the desire?
So listen to me, listen very meditatively. If you are pushing the river I am not saying
stop it, I am simply saying that by pushing the river nothing is achieved. Listen to it.
Let this sink into your heart. And if you feel like pushing because of old habits -- you
have been pushing for many lives -- -go on pushing, but go on seeing the fact that this
is stupid, that you are being stupid. Don't pull away from it, don't try to control
yourself. Let it happen -- but with the vision that it is stupid, that it is meaningless,
that nothing is going to come out of it. Let it happen -- but with no expectation,
waiting for frustration, knowing perfectly well that frustration is coming, that you are
wasting your energy, that it is because of old habits. Go on, don't pull back.
And one day you will see that the hands are getting slower and slower. You are not
pushing as hard as you used to. And some day, when you have a clear vision, when
you are transparent, you will see the whole absurdity. Seeing, there is transformation.
Once seen totally, the hands simply stop. Not that you stop them, they stop of their
own accord. And when they stop of their own accord there is great grace, there is
great beauty.
The third question:
Question 3
YOU HAVE CONVINCED ME. BEFORE ANY QUESTION ARISES, BEFORE
ANY ANSWER CAN BE GIVEN, I BELIEVE YOU, HAPPILY.
The question is from Yoga Puja.
It is not a question at all! I am happy, Puja. But just change one word in your mind.
Don't call it conviction, call it conversion. That is what you really mean. You have
used a wrong word, that's all.
Conviction is logical, intellectual, of the mind. It does not go very deep. And behind
each conviction, doubt persists. Conviction does not change anybody. It is a mind
thing, how can it change your totality? And conviction is borrowed. I am being very
logical about something and you become convinced, but it is because I am being very
logical about something. My logic appeals to you, you cannot argue against it, hence
con-viction. Conviction is borrowed. We get it all from others. You become a
Christian, a convinced Christian, because your parents were Christian. Or you become
a convinced Hindu, a staunch Hindu, a mad Hindu, because your parents were Hindus.
And so on, so forth.
I have heard....
A Sunday school teacher suddenly stopped reading a passage in her Bible and asked
her pupils, 'Why do you believe in God?'
She got a variety of answers -- some full of simple faith, others obviously insincere.
The one that stopped her cold came from the son of one of Chicago's best known
ministers.
He frowned and answered, 'I guess it just runs in our family.'
That's how you get your convictions.
With me let there be conversion, not conviction; I am not interested in convincing you
about anything. Truth is. It needs no conviction. Either you know it or you don't know
it. It needs no belief. Beliefs don't help in any way. What you need is not conviction,
you need conversion -- conversion of the heart, a hundred-and-eighty degree turn, a
total change of your vision, a change of your plane. You start looking at life from
another vantage point. That is not conviction, that is conversion. It is not that your
idea has changed but YOU have changed.
And that's exactly what Puja means. She has only used a wrong word. She says: YOU
HAVE CONVINCED ME. BEFORE ANY QUESTION ARISES, BEFORE ANY
ANSWER CAN BE GIVEN, I BELIEVE YOU. Again she is using a wrong word -'believe'. But they are related. If you think it is a conviction then you will think it is
because you have started believing in me. If you think it is a conversion then it will
not be a belief -- it will be trust. Belief is in what I say, trust is in what I am. They are
diametrically opposite.
But my feeling about Puja is that she has only used wrong words -- otherwise she
means exactly that.
Good, I am happy. If you listen to me from the heart, this is going to happen to
everybody. If you listen to me, not with any motive to go anywhere, to achieve
anything, but just for the sheer joy of listening -- as one listens to music or as one
listens to the sound of a waterfall or this cuckoo -- if you listen to me for no motive at
all but just to be here with me, conversion is going to happen, transformation is going
to happen. My flame is going to jump into you and light your unlit candle.
The fourth question:
Question 4
OSHO, JUST WHEN THE ASHRAM SEEMS TO BE COMING TOGETHER WE
WILL BE MOVING. IS IT YOUR INTENTION THAT WE SHOULD BE LIVING
ON A PERPETUAL BUILDING SITE?
Precisely!
The fifth question:
Question 5
IS THERE ANY NECESSITY FOR EVERYBODY TO HAVE A RELIGION OF
ONE KIND OR OTHER?
Yes, everybody ought to have a religion of one kind or another. You owe it to yourself
to know what church you are staying away from. Otherwise you will feel very
miserable. You will miss.
I have heard....
Nurse: 'What church do you belong to?'
Patient: 'None.'
Nurse: 'Well, what church do you go to when you go?'
Patient: 'If you must know, the church which I stay away from the most of the time
when I don't go, is the Baptist.'
Or....
Simpkin had been shipwrecked for twenty years on a desert island when finally he
was rescued by a passing ship.
'What did you do to keep busy all those years?' asked the captain of the rescue vessel.
'I went into the building business,' replied Simpkin, whereupon he took the captain to
a corner of the island and showed him a beautiful synagogue.
'That's incredible!' said the sailing master.
'That's nothing,' said Simpkin. This time he led him to the opposite side of the island
and displayed another magnificently constructed house of worship.
'I don't understand,' said the captain. 'You are the only person on the island. Why did
you need two synagogues?'
'This one I belong to,' explained Simpkin, 'but the other one I would not set foot inside
if they paid me!'
These are your ways to define yourself. These are the ways of the ego to define itself.
You are a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Buddhist. You are Indian, German or Italian.
You are a Catholic or a Protestant. These are ways to define yourself, who you are.
In fact, a religious person need not have any religion. A religious person is religionless.
A religious person has a quality of religiousness, certainly, but that quality is very
indefinable. It is more like a poetry around him, more like a radiance. Yes, in his
actions you will see a grace, in his life you will see gratitude, in his behaviour you
will see compassion. But he is not Hindu or Mohammedan or Christian. These are
very mediocre ways to become religious. These are not the real ways to become
religious.
Religion is basically an art: how to live and how to die; how to live and enjoy, and
how to die and enjoy; how to live gracefully and how to die gracefully; how to make
your whole life -- death included -- a celebration.
Religion has nothing to do with the Bible, the Gita, the Koran; religion has something
to do with an alchemical transformation of your being. So whenever you find a really
religious person you will not find him as a Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jew -you will simply find him with an un-known quality present in him, which defines him.
But this definition is not of the ego; this definition is just of his life style.
Yes, around Jesus you will find a quality of religiousness, so will you find it around
Buddha or around Mohammed or around Nanak. You will find a quality of
religiousness, but you will have to watch. You will have to have a certain vision to see
it.
It happened in Nanak's life that he came to visit a town in which there were many
saints -- Mohammedans, Jainas, Buddhists, Hindus. The town was full of the saints.
And, of course, when there are too many saints there is much conflict, controversy.
And a new prophet was coming.
So the old saints thought, 'This is too much. We are already overcrowded here.' So
they called a conference and they sent a message to Nanak -- he was staying just
outside the town. The message was: 'It is too crowded here. We are already too many
here. Already business is not good because there are only a few clients and many
saints. Please go somewhere else.'
And they knew that Nanak's name had reached the town; his fame had reached the
town. If he came, even those few clients that they could divide among themselves
would be gone. So they did a beautiful thing. They thought about how to send the
message so that Nanak did not feel offended. They were worried that he would feel
offended -- because it was offensive. Who were they to prevent Nanak from coming?
But they were cunning people. They searched in the scriptures and they found a way.
They sent a cup full of oil -- not even a single drop more could be added. It was
almost overflowing, on the verge. They sent the cup as a symbol that this town was so
full of saints and religions that not a single drop more could be accepted. There was
no more space.
Nanak was sitting near a well under a tree with his disciple, and the disciple was
singing a song, playing on his instrument. The people came with the cup. Nanak
looked at them, understood the message, took a flower from the side of the well, a
wildflower, and floated the flower on the oil in the cup. The flower was so small it
simply floated. It didn't take any space. No oil came out of the cup. And Nanak said to
them, 'Go back and give this cup to the people who have sent you to me.'
The disciple was puzzled. He said, 'I don't understand what is transpiring between you
and these people. This cup was very mysterious. What exactly did they mean?' Nanak
said, 'They mean that there are too many saints here and there is no space. But,' Nanak
said; 'a religious man needs no space. That's my answer. I will not be fighting with
anybody. I will not be in any competition with anybody. A religious man needs no
space. A religious man is not a businessman. They need not be afraid of me. I will be
here just like this flower floating on top of the full cup. And I will be here just like the
flower -- one day I will be here, tomorrow I will be gone. They need not be worried
about me.'
Now this is religiousness -- non-competitiveness, no conflict with anybody, no
aggression. And one knows that one is here just for a few moments. It is a
caravanserai -- an overnight stay. By the morning we are gone, just like flowers.
A religious person has nothing to do with organised religion, but he has something to
do with the inner poetry, the poetry of life. He has something to do with the inner
dance; he has a dancing energy. He is in deep romance with life, he is in romantic love
with life. He is immensely grateful for each moment of joy that God goes on giving.
And we are not even worthy. We don't deserve it. We have not earned it. It is a gift.
You ask: IS THERE ANY NECESSITY FOR EVERYBODY TO HAVE A
RELIGION OF ONE KIND OR ANOTHER?
The second thing: there are not two kinds of religion. Religiousness is one -- although
formulations may differ. It is just like you make your house in one way, another
makes his in another way and the third one has chosen a third architect to design his
house. But the inner thing is one -- that you need a shelter, you need a roof.
Somebody cooks in an Indian style, somebody in a Chinese style and somebody in
some other style, but the real thing is hunger -- that you need food, that you need
nourishment.
So these so-called religions are nothing but different styles of nourishment. You can
choose. But that is not important. The important thing is to have refuge in God,
surrender -- what Sufis call ISLAM; and commitment -- what Sufis call IMAN; and a
transformation of life through trust -- what Sufis call IHSAM.
The sixth question:
Question 6
FOUR YEARS AGO I HAD A READING WHICH SAID THAT MY BLOOD
DISEASE WAS GONE DUE TO THE GURU'S BLESSINGS. WHEN I TOLD YOU,
YOU SAID, 'FROM THE DAY YOU TOOK SANNYAS YOUR CANCER WAS
GONE.' I REMEMBER FEELING THAT YOUR SAYING THAT MIGHT HAVE
BEEN A DESIGN AND NOT A REAL FACT. I ALWAYS ACCEPTED THAT YOUR
TRUTHS MAY NOT BE FACTS. DID I MISS BECAUSE OF THIS?
The first thing: truth has no obligation to be a fact. Fact is a lower phenomenon: truth
is a higher phenomenon. Sometimes the truth may be factual, sometimes not. The fact
cannot be decisive about it. There are higher experiences in life which cannot be
contained by facts.
But I can understand. The question is from Chinmaya. The Western mind is too much
addicted to facts. Anything that is factual seems to be real and anything that is not
factual necessarily seems to be unreal. This is a Western obsession. Truth is
sometimes factual, sometimes not -- that's why I say truth has no obligation to be
factual. Because of this, the Western scientific mind cannot accept the human soul -because it is not factual. The body is factual; the soul is truth, not fact.
And the way facts are known, truths are not known; the approach has to be completely
different. For example, you see a rose. The beauty is truth but not fact. You cannot
prove it. There is no way to prove the beauty of the rose. You can prove its colour, you
can prove its weight, you can prove its chemistry, but you cannot prove its aesthetics.
But there is something even higher than beauty. Tennyson is reported to have said, 'If I
can understand a single flower, root and all, I would have understood the whole
existence' -- because the flower contains something which is more than the fact: its
hidden reality, its intrinsic reality. But that reality cannot be approached by the gross
instruments of scientific experimentation. Truth has to be approached in a different
way -- through meditation, through love.
Chinmaya says: FOUR YEARS AGO I HAD A READING WHICH SAID THAT MY
BLOOD DISEASE WAS GONE DUE TO THE GURU'S BLESSING. WHEN I
TOLD YOU, YOU SAID, 'FROM THE DAY YOU TOOK SANNYAS YOUR
CANCER WAS GONE.'
Cancer is basically a psychological disease; it is basically a disease of the mind, not a
physical one. When the mind becomes very tense, so tense that it is intolerable, it
starts affecting the body tissues. That's why cancer exists only when civilisation
becomes very, very sophisticated. In primitive societies you cannot find cancer.
People are not so sophisticated. The higher -- by 'higher' I mean complicated -- the
more sophisticated, the more complex a society is, the more cancer will happen.
So when I said to Chinmaya, 'FROM THE DAY YOU TOOK SANNYAS YOUR
CANCER WAS GONE,' I was saying many things. Sannyas is dropping the mind.
Sannyas is exactly that -- that you surrender the mind. Sannyas means you surrender
all your complexities, obsessions, neuroses. Sannyas means that now you are ready to
live a simple, ordinary life. Sannyas means that you are ready to become primal,
innocent, childlike.
Cancer has to disappear. Cancer can exist only in a certain neurotic state of mind. If
the mind relaxes, sooner or later the body will follow and will relax.
It is because of this fact that scientific investigation has not yet been able to find a
cure for cancer. It is almost impossible to find a cure for cancer -- and the day they
find a cure for cancer they will create even more dangerous diseases in the world -because the cure will mean repression. The day they can find strong enough drugs to
repress cancer, then some other disease will erupt. That poison will start flowing
through some other channel.
That's how it has happened down the ages. Simple diseases, were cured and difficult
diseases came into being. You cure one disease, another disease comes in. And the
second one is more complex than the first. The first was a natural reaction of the body,
the second is an unnatural, abnormal reaction of the body. You repress the second and
the third will come and the third will be even more difficult to tackle. And so on, so
forth. Now cancer is at the top. If cancer is repressed then even more difficult diseases
will erupt in the human body and the human mind.
When I said to Chinmaya, 'FROM THE DAY YOU TOOK SANNYAS YOUR
CANCER WAS GONE,' I was not talking about any fact. I was indicating a truth. And
if he had trusted me, it would have been gone. But a subtle doubt must have persisted
in him. He says: I REMEMBER FEELING THAT YOUR SAYING THAT MIGHT
HAVE BEEN A DESIGN AND NOT A REAL FACT. A design is higher than a fact. A
fact is a very ordinary thing, a design is a higher thing. But we believe in the very,
very lower reality, that's why we go on missing the higher reality. Yes, the colour of
the flower is a fact, and the chemistry is a fact -- but the poetry, the beauty, the joy
that the flower creates in you when you look at it, the awe that suddenly arises in your
heart.... It is not factual, true, but is it untrue because it is not factual? No, it is a
higher truth.
The higher need not agree with the lower; the lower has to agree with the higher -this is the Eastern approach. The Western approach is to reduce the higher to the lower;
the Eastern approach is to raise the lower to the higher. For example, if you go and
watch a lotus growing, it grows out of the dirty mud. If you show the lotus to the
Western thinker his approach will be, 'What is it? Nothing but mud.' 'Nothing but' is
the approach -- 'Nothing but mud.' And he is factual -- about that there is no doubt. It
has come out of the dirty mud, stinking mud. So he says, 'What is the source of it?
Reduce it to the source. Go to the cause.' The cause is the dirty mud, so this lotus is
nothing but dirty mud.
That's why Freud goes on saying that the experience of samadhi is nothing but sex.
The experience of samadhi is a lotus blooming, but he goes to the source. And he is
true, true in the sense that he is factual. He cannot be refuted on that ground. All your
so-called mahatmas together cannot refute him on that ground. He is valid as far as
factuality is concerned. Samadhi is the flowering of sexual energy, but in the same
way as the mud becomes a lotus. Can you really call a lotus just mud, nothing else? Is
it not something utterly new? It comes out of the mud, certainly, but can you reduce it
back to mud?
The Eastern approach is that even the mud is respectable because a rose may be
hidden in it, a lotus may be hidden in it. In the Western mind the lotus becomes
condemned because it comes out of mud; in the Eastern mind the mud becomes
sacred because it produces a lotus. We look to the ultimate, we don't go backwards.
We go forwards. We see the ultimate possibility. The West goes on seeing the source,
we see the goal. We are not worried about where it comes from, we are more worried
about where it is going. The potential, the ultimately potential, that's what truth is.
In the Western mind, man becomes body; in the Eastern mind, man becomes God. In
the Western mind, the world is just materialistic; there exists nothing else but matter.
In the Eastern mind, there exists nothing but God, but soul. Matter is also soul -asleep. Matter is potential soul -- one day it will become soul. These are different
visions. And if you have to choose, choose the Eastern vision because it has reverence
for life, reverence for truth. Fact is an ordinary thing. Don't be too much entangled by
the fact.
You say: I REMEMBER FEELING THAT YOUR SAYING THAT MIGHT HAVE
BEEN A DESIGN.... When Chinmaya is saying MIGHT HAVE BEEN A DESIGN he
means 'might have been a lie'. A design is neither a truth nor a lie. A design is just a
creative device. If you trust in it, it works; if you don't trust in it, it doesn't work. It is
up to you. You can miss. If the idea arises in you that it may be just a design, what are
you saying? You are saying that it may be just a lie. That very idea will be enough to
become a barrier. The bridge is broken.
Remember, a design is higher than fact. It is lower than truth but higher than fact. It
leads you from the fact tot he truth; it is a bridge between the two. It is neither factual
nor true; it is a lead.
Listen to this....
A Bavarian farmer wanted to sell his pig in nearby Switzerland to get a better price.
To avoid paying customs he dressed the pig in his black suit with sunglasses and a hat
and put it in the back of his Mercedes.
At the border the custom officer looked inside the car, then gave the farmer the sign to
drive on. He turned around to his friend and exploded with laughter.
'What happened?' asked his friend.
'There was a guy sitting inside,' he answered, with tears of laughter, 'who looked
exactly like a pig!'
This is a design. It worked! The whole point is that it worked. Whether it is a lie or a
truth does not matter. It is not factual, that is true; it is not true, that too is there -- it is
just in-between.
And to be with a Master is to be available to his design.
The last question:
Question 7
YOU SOMETIMES USE THE WORD 'ACCIDENT' OR 'ACCIDENTAL' TO
DESCRIBE AN EVENT. ARE THERE ANY ACCIDENTS IN LIFE IN REALITY?
In reality there are only accidents and accidents, and nothing else. The factual world is
the world of cause and effect; the world of truth is the world of freedom. Freedom
means that causes don't work at all. Freedom means that now everything is accidental,
now everything is possible. Nothing is impossible in the world of reality. From the
moment you become enlightened everything becomes possible. Now no cause and
effect have any hold on you.
But I understand your question. It comes again from the same ideology -- that how
can anything be accidental? The world is confined to cause and effect. Everything can
be reduced to cause and effect. Nothing happens as a miracle. That is the scientific
approach.
That's why men like B. F. Skinner or Pavlov and other behaviourists go on saying that
the idea of freedom is just stupid. There is no freedom. Man has no freedom because
everything is predestined by cause and effect. If Skinner is right, then Buddha cannot
be right. If Skinner is right, then the whole heritage of religion is wrong. Then
everything is predestined by cause and effect. You do a certain thing just as a machine
does it. You don't have any freedom.
And these men are right about ninety-nine per cent of people. If they watch ordinary
people, they will find every support -- that's how they have come to these conclusions.
When I am talking, there is a meeting of two different dimensions. You live in the
world which is determined by cause and effect, I live in the world which is of freedom.
When I look at you I will talk about cause and effect, when I look into myself I talk
about freedom. In the real world, in the world of truth, all is absolute freedom.
Nothing is pre-determined. And that's the beauty of it. That's why in India we have
called it MOKSHA. MOKSHA means freedom, absolute freedom.
Man is neither naturally good nor bad. He is free and he becomes good or bad
according to how he accepts or denies his freedom. To exist is to be obliged to be free.
What is left to us is the way in which we will be free -- and in the end there are just
these two ways: to use our freedom against freedom or to use it for freedom.
'Existence is the self's possibility to be or not to be itself.' This is an existentialist
statement. I agree with it. Man is freedom. It is not only that man is free -- man is
freedom. Freedom is man's essential core, and that is man's dignity. Animals are less
free, trees are even less free, rocks even less free. That's how we decide who is more
evolved -- according to freedom.
A rock is not very free; a tree is a little more free. It can grow according to some inner
vision. It can feel sad or happy. It can make some effort. It can struggle, compete. It
cannot leave its ground; in that way it is unfree. It is rooted. Animals are a little more
free. They can move; physically they can move. Birds are even a little more free.
They can fly into the faraway sky. Man is even more free. He can move not only
physically, he can move mentally. His mind can move.
And a Buddha is total freedom because not only his mind but his soul is free.
Freedom goes on growing, layer upon layer. It becomes more. When freedom
becomes absolute, you have arrived home.
You ask me: YOU SOMETIMES USE THE WORD 'ACCIDENT' OR
'ACCIDENTAL TO DESCRIBE AN EVENT. ARE THERE ANY ACCIDENTS IN
LIFE IN REALITY?
One early morning in heaven three men arrived at the same time. St Peter was
surprised, as hardly anybody came at this time. So he asked the first, 'How come?'
'Well,' he said, 'I came back home from a journey and found a man's coat hanging up
and shoes hanging around, and my wife naked in bed looking very happy. So I
searched for the man but could not find anybody and got so furious that I smashed the
TV and threw the fridge out of the window. Then I took a gun and killed myself.'
'And you?' St Peter asked the second.
'Well, I was making love to my secretary when she said suddenly, "Ah, my husband!"
So I jumped into the fridge to hide. But then the fellow threw the fridge out from the
third floor, so I am here!
'I don't know,' said the third. 'I was just waiting for my bus in the morning when
suddenly a fridge came out of the blue and brought me here!'
Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2
Chapter #15
Chapter title: A Silent Shrine
10 September 1977 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code:
7709100
ShortTitle:
SUFIS215
Audio: Yes
Video:
No
Length: 108 mins
THE SUFI SAGE, ABDULALIM OF FEZ, REFUSED TO TEACH, BUT FROM
TIME TO TIME WOULD ADVISE PEOPLE ABOUT THE WAY TO PROCEED
ON THE PATH.
ONE DAY A DISCIPLE, WHO WAS BOTH INCAPABLE OF LEARNING AND
REGULARLY DRIVEN ABNORMAL BY ATTENDING 'MYSTICAL
CEREMONIES', VISITED HIM.
HE ASKED, 'HOW CAN I BEST PROFIT FROM THE TEACHINGS OF THE
SAGES?'
THE SUFI SAID, 'I AM HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO TELL YOU THAT I HAVE AN
INFALLIBLE METHOD WHICH CORRESPONDS TO YOUR CAPACITY.'
'AND WHAT IS THAT, IF I AM ALLOWED TO HEAR IT?'
'SIMPLY STOP UP YOUR EARS AND THINK ABOUT RADISHES.'
'BEFORE, DURING OR AFTER THE LECTURES AND EXERCISES?'
'INSTEAD OF ATTENDING ANY OF THEM.'
MAN is a quest -- not a question but a quest. A question can be solved intellectually,
but a quest has to be solved existentially. It is not that we are seeking some answers to
some questions, it is that we are seeking some answer to our being.
It is a quest because questions are about others. A quest is about oneself. Man is
seeking himself. He knows he is, but he also knows that he does not know who he is.
Hence from the very birth a great enquiry starts rising in the innermost core of man.
We can repress that enquiry, we can divert that enquiry, we can change that enquiry
for substitute enquiries, but he cannot kill it. There is no way to kill it because it is
intrinsic to human nature. It is intrinsic to consciousness to know what it is.
That enquiry is man's very nature, and unless it is resolved, man remains searching.
Of course, there are nine hundred and ninety-nine ways to go wrong, and there is only
one way to go right -- so the search is full of hazards. It is not simple; it is very
complex -- and it is very rare that a man reaches. But unless you reach, you will
continue in agony, in turmoil. You will remain a cry in the wilderness. You will not
know what joy is. Not knowing yourself, how can you be joyous? And you will not
know what benediction is. Not knowing yourself, there is no benediction.
You will hear words like 'contentment', 'blissfulness', but they will remain words.
They won't have any content for you. The content has to be supplied by your
experience. They will remain empty words. They will create much noise around you
but they will not mean anything.
Search is intrinsic to human nature. But then arises the problem that there are many
ways to go wrong, How to find the right path?
This small parable is of immense significance. Each word of it has to be understood.
Carlyle has said, 'The misfortune of man has its source in his greatness. For there is
something infinite in him and he cannot succeed in burying himself completely in the
finite.'
There is something in man which is higher than man, bigger than man, and there is no
way to bury it somewhere in the finite. You can see. You can seek money and power,
but each time you succeed, you will find that you have failed. Each time you succeed,
the success will bring nothing but the awareness of the failure. Money is there but you
are as dissatisfied as ever, or even more so. Power is there and you are as impotent as
ever. Nothing makes man more aware of powerlessness than power. Nothing makes
man more aware of inner poverty than riches -- because of the contrast. You can see
that there are riches outside but inside you are a beggar, still desiring and asking and
hankering and searching.
From one side this seems to be a misfortune -- the misery of man. From another side it
is his greatness. Carlyle is right when he says, 'The misfortune of man has its source
in his greatness.' What is this greatness? This greatness is his capacity to surpass
himself, to go beyond himself, to make a ladder of his life, to jump out of himself.
Unless that jump has happened, you live in a wasteland; nothing will ever bloom there.
You can make all the efforts possible but the desert will remain a desert; you will not
come across any flowers.
Those flowers start happening only when you have started reaching somewhere close
to truth. That is the quest. The quest is that man longs to become God. The quest is
that man wants to become truth. 'AN-EL-HAQ!' Man wants to feel it -- that 'I am
truth.' Nothing less than that will ever satisfy him.
This parable....
THE SUFI SAGE, ABDULALIM OF FEZ, REFUSED TO TEACH, BUT FROM
TIME TO TIME WOULD ADVISE PEOPLE ABOUT THE WAY TO PROCEED
ON THE PATH.
Go slowly and meditatively.
The first thing to be understood is the meaning of the word 'sage'. Sufis make a great
distinction between the word 'saint' and the word 'sage'. And there IS a great
distinction. They are not synonymous. Notwithstanding what your dictionaries say.
they are not synonymous.
Man can ordinarily have two kinds of character. One is the negative character: the
character of the criminal, the character of the anti-social, the character of the
rebellious. Another is the positive character: the character of the conventional,
orthodox. respectable.
The criminal will be punished, will be thrown into prison if caught. The society will
try to destroy him because he is a danger to the society. He is disobedient. He is trying
to assert himself and the society does not like that. The society exists by destroying
individuals; the society can exist only by destroying individuals. The society has more
power if there are no individuals around. If there are individuals then the power is less
and less and less. If the whole society consists of individuals then there will be no
power in the authorities -- there will be no power in the priest or the politician. So the
society tries to crush. uproot, destroy the anti-social. the immoral -- the individual
who wants to have his own morality, who wants to do his own thing. The society is
very murderous about the negative. And naturally, on the other hand, the society
respects the positive.
If you follow the society, the society honours you. So the one, the negative character,
becomes criminal, and the other, the positive character, becomes a respected
gentleman. If the criminal goes on moving to the logical extreme, then he will become
the devil. And if the gentleman goes on moving to the logical extreme, he will become
the saint. The saint is one who is for the society, hence the society is for him. And the
evil character is one who is not for the society, is only for himself -- so the society is
naturally against him. But there is one thing which is common to both: they are half.
This has to be understood. This is one of the most important Sufi ideas: both are half,
partial.
The saint has only the positive; he is missing the negative. That's why you will find
your saints very boring; you will find your saints very flat, dull. You will find that to
live with your saints for even twenty-four hours will be a great ordeal. The saint will
not have any joy, he will be sad. He will never do anything wrong, he will be always
good, but he will not have any song to sing. He will not have any uniqueness about
him. He will be just a type, a stereotype. He will not have any unique taste of his own,
he will be a conformist. He will be almost dead because the positive is bound to be
dead. Unless the negative goes on playing with it, there is no joy. Life is a warp and
woof between the positive and the negative. You cannot make the saint whole. Hence
Sufis will not say that the saint is holy -- because he is not whole, he is half.
Half of him, the negative part, has been repressed, denied. All connections with the
negative part have been cut. The negative is thrown into the unconscious dungeon.
The saint has tried in every way not to be even aware of its existence. But it exists.
There is no way to drop it. The only way to go beyond it is to absorb it, not to drop it.
Let me repeat: the only way to go beyond it is to absorb it. But it needs great
intelligence, it needs great understanding, wisdom, meditativeness, to transform the
poison into elixir.
The negative is poisonous, but the poison can become medicinal in the right hands.
The saint is a little stupid. You will find saints stupid, mediocre. They were not really
intelligent people, otherwise they would have transformed their negative, they would
have transformed all that is dangerous into a beautiful flowering. The saint will carry
the negative in the unconscious.
So if you look through a window into the mind of a saint while he is asleep, you will
be surprised. He's doing things which you could not even have thought about him. In
dreams the saint will become the negative. There will be a shift, a total shift, from the
positive to the negative -- because the negative also needs a little play, a little activity.
So you will find that the dreams of the saints are very criminal. That's why saints are
very much afraid to sleep. They go on reducing their sleep because it is the only thing
where they are without any control. The moment they fall asleep the control is lost.
The conscious goes to sleep and the unconscious take possession, and the unconscious
is the negative.
And they are very much afraid because in the unconscious are repressed sexuality,
murderous instincts, anger, rage, hatred -- all kinds of scorpions and snakes and
poisonous beings. They all start bubbling up, surfacing. Saints are very much troubled
by sleep, because sleep brings one fact home, and brings it home very clearly -- that
the unconscious or the negative has not been destroyed, it is still there. Saints have
great nightmares.
The criminal, the anti-social, the rebellious, the negative personality is also half. The
negative people are the ones who become great politicians, sometimes great
revolutionaries, and release great negative poison on the world. An Adolf Hitler or
Josef Stalin or Benito Mussolini or Mao Tse Tung -- these are the negative type
people. They are just the opposite of the saint, but in one way almost the same -- they
are as half as the saint is. The difference is only one: what the saint has made the
unconscious, they have made their conscious, and what they have made their
conscious the saint has made the unconscious.
Josef Stalin or Adolf Hitler are not different from Mahatma Gandhi. The only
difference is that what is repressed in Mahatma Gandhi is expressed in Adolf Hitler,
and what is expressed in Adolf Hitler is repressed in Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma
Gandhi goes on repressing the negative, Adolf Hitler goes on expressing the negative.
Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi are exactly the same type of person. One is just
standing on his head doing a sirshasana, a headstand -- but the type is exactly the
same. There is no difference. And you will be surprised to know that these great
criminals have beautiful dreams, far more beautiful than the saints can ever have,
because their repressed positivity comes out in their dreams. In their dreams they
become great saints. They do great good things to humanity.
These are the two ordinary types of people: the saint and sinner. They go together. In a
world where there are no more sinners there will be no more saints. In a world where
there are no more saints there will be no more sinners. They are partners in the same
business. They exist together, they help each other. Without the one the other cannot
even exist, cannot survive. The sinner gives definition to the saint and the saint gives
definition to the sinner.
The sage has a totally different kind of consciousness. It is whole it is not a choice. It
is neither positive nor negative, it has absorbed both. It is total acceptance.
Whatsoever has been given by God has to be transformed into one unity. Man has not
to choose but to accept. And remember, by acceptance I don't mean tolerance. When
you tolerate something you have not really accepted it. You say, 'What can be done? It
is there, so okay, I will tolerate it. If it cannot be dropped, if it cannot be destroyed,
then I will have to tolerate it.' Remember, acceptance is not just tolerance. Acceptance
is joyful welcome -- 'What-soever God has given must have some meaning although I
may not be able to see the meaning Of it right now. I will have to search for it.' But
there is a tacit understanding that whatsoever is given must have some meaning,
otherwise it would not have been given in the first place.
With this understanding a sage is born. A sage is a holy man because a sage is whole.
He does not deny his sexuality, he does not deny his anger, he does not deny anything
at all. He accepts everything with deep understanding, gratitude, welcome. And in that
very understanding, in that very welcoming attitude, things start changing. A great
alchemical change happens. This miracle happens in a sage -- anger becomes
compassion. Anger plus understanding is equal to compassion, sex plus meditation is
equal to samadhi.
There is a part which is carrying all the seeds of meditation, and there is another part
which is carrying all the seeds of sexuality. The sinner denies the meditative part and
accepts the sexual part; the saint denies the sexual part and accepts the meditative part.
But both remain lopsided. The sage accepts both, brings them together -meditativeness and sexuality -- and watches a great miracle happening in himself, the
greatest. As meditativeness and sexuality come close suddenly there is a change -they become one flame. And that one name has a totally new quality.
It is just like when hydrogen and oxygen meet, you have water. Now this is a miracle
-- a miracle in the sense that oxygen does not have the qualities of water, neither does
hydrogen. But when hydrogen and oxygen come close, get into a loving embrace,
become one unity, suddenly a new quality arises in existence which was not in either
of the components. You can drink as much oxygen as you want but your thirst will not
go. And you can drink as much hydrogen as you want and your thirst will not go. But
water is nothing but H20. Then water has something which is not contained in the
parts. Something new has happened: the parts have disappeared into something new.
A higher synthesis has been arrived at.
That's what I mean by organic transformation. Whenever two things meet, if there is a
real meeting, a third thing is born. When a man and a woman meet and love, a child is
born. Now the child will not have the qualities of the father and will not have the
qualities of the mother. The child will have his own qualities, the child will be a
unique individual. You cannot just reduce the child to the qualities of the parents. You
cannot say, 'This quality comes from this parent, this quality comes from that parent -and the child is just a sum total of it.' No. If the child is just a sum total of the parents
then there is no soul. The child must be something more than the sum total of the
parents, only then is there a soul.
Water is something more than the sum total of H20.
Only when two opposites meet does this organic trans-formation happen. Man and
woman meet, then a child is born. A child cannot be born from a meeting of a man
with another man, or a woman with another woman. Similars cannot create
only opposites.
Now meditativeness and love are opposites. Meditativeness needs aloneness, love
needs the other. Sexuality and meditation are opposites. Sexuality is a desire, a
continuous desire, unfulfilled -- it remains unfulfilled. And meditation is
desirelessness. These are opposites. When they meet, suddenly there is a flare-up.
Something happens which was not contained in either.
The saint is just meditative. He is carrying one part -- hydrogen or oxygen. The sinner
is just sexual, he's carrying another part. When the saint and the sinner meet in you,
the sage is born. When the polarities meet in you in deep embrace, are lost into each
other, lose all definitions, merge, become one, the sage is born in you. The sage is the
rarest flowering in existence. The saint is a faraway echo of it, as far away as the
sinner.
So Sufis say that the sage is not a saint. You can find many saints, that is very easy.
Saints are a social phenomenon. But to find a sage is difficult because the sage is as
individual as the criminal and as cosmic as the saint. He is both together. In the sage,
God and Devil meet and lose all their identities. That is the highest meeting. There is
no higher meeting than that. This moment of meeting within you of the sinner and the
saint, of the negative and the positive, is the moment of samadhi.
The sage is no-mind. The sinner is negative mind, the saint is positive mind, the sage
is no-mind. The sinner lives in constant duality. He has to fight with his saint,
remember it. The sinner has continuously to fight with his saint, because the saint IS
there. The sinner is going to kill somebody and the saint says, 'Don't do this, this is
not right.' He has to fight. His fight is as arduous as the fight of the saint. The saint has
to fight the sinner. If somebody insults him and a great desire to kill him arises, he has
to fight with that desire. He cannot do it, he is a saint, he is a holy man, he is a
religious man -- this and that. Both go on fighting. They have to because they live in
the duality, and the repressed part goes on taking revenge. It waits for the right
moments to assert itself.
In the sage there is silence, there is no duality. The sage becomes a silent shrine. There
is no longer any conflict, any antagonism. There is no longer any war going on in him.
There is utter peace. That's what Sufis call ISLAM. There is utter peace, silence.
Those warring elements have disappeared into unity. The marriage has happened.
THE SUFI SAGE; ABDULALIM...
So when the parable says 'sage' it means an enlightened person, one who has come
home.
THE SUFI SAGE, ABDULALIM OF FEZ, REFUSED TO TEACH, BUT FROM
TIME TO TIME WOULD ADVISE PEOPLE ABOUT THE WAY TO PROCEED
ON THE PATH.
Why he should refuse to teach?
A sage always refuses to teach. The reason? -- because truth cannot be taught. The
sage is never a teacher. He is a Master, but he is never a teacher.
First, the truth cannot be taught, it can only be caught. You can catch it like an
infection from the Master. You can allow yourself to be close to him, and one day you
can catch the truth, but it cannot be taught. It is not a kind of information that can be
delivered to you, it is an existential experience. You can partake of it but it cannot be
given to you. Nobody can give you truth. And I'm not saying that the Master cannot
give you truth because he doesn't have it, no. Even if he has it, he cannot give it. It is
not a thing and it is not information. It is not knowledge, it is a lived experience -- you
will have to live in the Master with the Master.
It will happen. In a very mysterious way it happens. Strange are the ways of God.
Only untruth can be delivered, truth cannot be delivered. So the sage is never a
teacher. This is the difference between a teacher and a Master. He is available to give
to you, but the giving is very subtle, the giving is very esoteric, it is very occult, it is
very hidden. It cannot be given as scientific knowledge is given to you. You cannot
make any education out of it. You cannot put it into words, theories, clear-cut
principles. It is so vast. The moment you put it into any principle, you can
immediately see that something has disappeared from it; it is no longer alive.
Principles are like photographs. A bird on the wing is one thing. If you take a
photograph, the photograph shows the bird on the wing -- but it is just a photograph.
The bird is no longer flying, everything has stopped. It is not alive.
I have heard....
A beautiful woman told Pablo Picasso, 'The other day I saw one of your self-portraits.
It was beautiful.' The woman was a bore and Picasso was fed-up with her -- and she
went on and on. And she said, 'It was really beautiful, you have done such a beautiful
job. And I loved the painting so much that I kissed it.'
Picasso suddenly became alive and he said, 'What happened? Did the painting kiss
you?' The lady said, 'What are you talking about? How can the painting kiss me?'
Piccaso said, 'Then it was not me.'
The bird on the wing is alive. The flower on the tree is alive. My hand in a gesture is a
bird on the wing, it is alive. You can have a photograph of it but something very
essential will be missing from it. It will be only the outline of the hand; the soul will
be missing from it.
So it happens with truth. Truth is aliveness. It is eternal life. The moment you put it
into words, you have photographs.
So a sage cannot teach the truth, he can only show you where you can go and see the
bird on the wing for yourself. He cannot teach you principles, he can only indicate the
way. He cannot inform you about truth, he can only inform you about the methods
that can clean your heart, that can clarify your mind, that can subdue your inner
turmoil, that can help you to stop your constant inner talk so that you are in a silent
state of mind and you can see truth -- because truth is all around, just the silence of
the mind is needed. The Master cannot teach you but he can inspire you. The Master
cannot teach you but he can invoke you. The Master cannot teach you but he can
invite you. A Master is a finger pointing to the moon. A Master is not a teacher.
And the second thing: teaching is always general, teaching is always theoretical.
Teaching is like the menu: you cannot eat it and you cannot be nourished by it.
Teaching is like a porno-graphic photograph. It is not the real woman or the real man.
You cannot love it and you cannot be loved by it.
A Master, a sage, can advise you but he cannot teach you. What is the difference?
Advice is always personal, it is never general. Advice is from person to person, heart
to heart. Advice is always practical, never theoretical. Advice is always experimental,
never philosophical. Advice is like food, and teaching is like a menu. Advice is like a
real man or a real woman and teaching is just pornographic.
The story says:
THE SUFI SAGE, ABDULALIM OF FEZ, REFUSED TO TEACH, BUT FROM
TIME TO TIME WOULD ADVISE PEOPLE ABOUT THE WAY TO PROCEED
ON THE PATH.
From time to time he would advise people -- but only when he found that somebody
was ready, only when he found that there was a burning desire; only when he saw that
there was a quest, not only curiosity; only when he saw that there was a sincere desire
to devote oneself, to sacrifice oneself, for the truth; only when he saw that here there
was a gambler who could gamble, not a business man who would calculate each step.
Truth is for gamblers because it is for those who can take a risk. It is not for business
people.
So only when he found that somebody was really in need would his advice be
available. That's why Masters have always moved away from the masses. They create
a thousand and one ways to stop the masses from coming to them. They exist only for
the few, for those who are really in search. And they create devices so that they
become invisible to the masses. For example, you can see that I am here, but I am
invisible to Poona people. It is deliberately done. I am here only for those people who
need advice, who are really searching on their own. Even if no advice is going to
come they will go on searching. They will go on risking their life in the search. But if
advice is available then many pitfalls can be avoided.
This is the difference between teaching and advice. Whatsoever I say to you is not a
teaching, it is only advice. It is a provocation, it is a seduction, but not a teaching. It is
a persuasion but not a teaching. It is encouragement hut not a teaching. It is to give
you courage, zest, gusto, so that you can go on with more fervour, with more verve,
with more energy, so that you can be more certain that there is hope. All that I say to
you is just to create hope in you -- because the path is dark and there are a thousand
and one pitfalls. And the path goes on branching in many wrong paths. A Master is
needed to keep you on the right track.
ONE DAY A DISCIPLE, WHO WAS BOTH INCAPABLE OF LEARNING AND
REGULARLY DRIVEN ABNORMAL BY ATTENDING 'MYSTICAL
CEREMONIES', VISITED HIM.
A few things about this disciple. First, he is not a disciple. He thinks he is a disciple
but he is at the most a student. There is the same difference between a teacher and a
Master as there is between a student and a disciple. A student is there to collect some
information. A student is there to become more knowledgeable. A student is there to
know more, but without risking anything. A student is one who is not ready to pay any
price. He wants to remain as he is; he just wants to accumulate more knowledge. He
wants to become more intellectual, he wants to become a scholar, he wants to become
a pundit, a doctor, but he is not interested in transforming himself. He wants to hold
truth in his hand but he is not ready to dissolve himself into truth. He wants to possess
truth but he does not want to be possessed by truth.
A disciple is one who wants to be possessed by truth. A disciple cannot think, 'I
should possess truth. How can I possess truth?' In fact, the 'I' is the only barrier
towards truth. How can 'I' possess truth? Truth is vast, truth is infinite. How can it be
possessed by such a small head? It is not possible. You cannot possess the ocean in
your fist, but you can drown yourself in the ocean and disappear. That's when a
disciple is ready -- when he is ready to drown himself and to disappear. Even if the
price is his life, he is ready.
When there is something more valuable than life, you become a disciple, otherwise
not. If you can sacrifice your life for something, then you are a disciple. Otherwise
you are a student -- just greedy. You want to have some information so that you can
use it in your life, so that you can succeed in a better way.
Many people come to me even though I have created so many barriers. Sometimes,
somehow, they sneak in and they ask me questions which should not be asked. They
ask me, 'If we meditate, what benefit will there be in worldly ways? Will it make us
more healthy, more successful? Will it help us to succeed in the world?' Or somebody
comes and asks, 'Will it help to make my memory more strong? Will it help my mind
to become more intelligent?' They are not interested in meditation as such, they are
interested in something else. They think that if meditation can be exploited for that,
good. They are students.
A disciple is one who has understood one thing: 'I don't know who I am' -- and that is
the most fundamental thing to know first. Anything else is secondary. 'I must know
who I am, only then can life have any meaning -- otherwise it can't have any meaning.
I can go on working and accumulating things, money, prestige. But how is that going
to satisfy me? -- because I don't even know who I am. I must first have absolute
feeling of my being, only then can I be on the right track.'
Everybody wants to have bliss, but how can you have bliss if you are not even aware
of who you are? One has to be absolutely aware of one's nature, only then is bliss
possible. Otherwise you will go on searching for something which may not be at all
helpful to your bliss. And you may go on missing something which is just there at the
comer, and was absolutely meant for your bliss. But how can you judge? You don't
know yourself; you are not aware of your nature. A disciple has only one desire: to
know himself. And he is ready to do whatsoever is needed for it to be done. He is
unconditionally ready to pay any price.
ONE DAY A DISCIPLE, WHO WAS BOTH INCAPABLE OF LEARNING AND
REGULARLY DRIVEN ABNORMAL BY ATTENDING 'MYSTICAL
CEREMONIES', VISITED HIM.
Now he is not a disciple. He thinks he is a disciple. He may be going to many people,
so he thinks he is a disciple. But he is not even capable of learning.
The word 'disciple' comes from a root which means: capacity to learn. And he is not
capable of learning. What prevents people from learning? What makes people
incapable?
A few things.... One, the capacity to learn needs a state of not knowing. You must be
innocent like a child, only then can you learn. If you already know, you cannot learn.
You must know that you don't know. You must not carry the ego of knowledge -- that
'I know'. The second thing is that a great receptivity is needed because you will have
to absorb. Openness is needed. You cannot remain closed, you cannot remain closed
with your old prejudices, ideas, concepts, ideologies. Intelligence is needed.
And when I say intelligence, always remember that I never mean intellectuality.
Intellectuality is a substitute for intelligence. People who pretend to be intelligent are
intellectuals. A real man of intelligence is not an intellectual at all, he is existential. He
knows perfectly well that intellect is uncreative, that it cannot create anything. At the
most it is a good survival device, but it is uncreative. All that is created is created by
something else. That is intelligence. You can call it intuitiveness -- but it is something
else. It has nothing to do with your intellect.
In a university your intellect is trained. You are taught how to argue, how to prove,
how to discuss, how to debate. You are taught logic. And through logic, intellect arises.
Now logic is in itself very illogical because it does not cover all of life. It is very
partial. Life is more than logic, it is paradoxical. So once you have got very fixed in
your logic you will start losing track of life. You will become more and more of an
intellectual and less and less intelligent. An intelligent person accepts logic, and
accepts illogic too. An intelligent person always accepts the polarity, he never chooses.
He does not say, 'I will choose the negative, or I will choose the positive, or I will
choose this and I will deny that.' Intelligence accepts all.
Intelligence has no choice. That's why Krishnamurti goes on defining intelligence as
choiceless awareness. And sometimes you can find it. You can find a non-intellectual
person who is absolutely uneducated, he may be a primitive man living in a village,
but he is of immense intelligence. In his eyes you can see intelligence, radiance; in his
acts you can see intelligence. And you can see a university professor behaving very
unintelligently, but he may be a great intellectual.
Intelligence means awareness. Intelligence means a kind of presence, instantaneous
presence, immediate presence. It happens here every day. I can go on looking at you.
Whenever I see an intellectual, I can immediately feel that he is closed in a kind of
wall, a transparent wall. He listens and yet he does not listen, because he is constantly
thinking about whether it is right or not, constantly thinking whether he agrees with
me or not, constantly thinking, yes, no -- choosing. And in that very choosing he is
losing, he is missing the whole point.
An intelligent person listens attentively with no idea. There is no need to decide right
now. He is immediately with me. It does not mean that he agrees with me. It does not
mean that he is agreeing or disagreeing, no. He is simply listening. What is the point
of agreeing and disagreeing? -- that can be done later on. And then there is a miracle:
if you can listen totally, attentively. in that very listening you will know what is truth
and what is not truth. There will be no need to think about it. The very quality of
silent listening will make you aware of what truth is. Truth has its own revelation.
When it is there you start feeling it is there. When it is not there, a thousand and one
arguments cannot prove that it is there. Truth has its own solid presence; you just have
to be available to it.
So the capacity to learn means intelligence, innocence, a childlike readiness to go into
the unknown, to explore, to be always in a kind of wonder, to feel the mystery of life.
This is the capacity to learn which makes a disciple.
And against it is the incapacity to learn: knowledgeability, intellectuality -- or call it
stupidity, they mean the same, intellectuality and stupidity are synonymous -closedness, a prejudiced mind, full of junk, full of the past, no space for the new.
A disciple is a womb -- ready to receive the truth, ready to receive the Master, ready
to receive his energy. And remember, with the Master it is always a transfer of energy.
Unseen by you, untouched by you, a constant shower of energy is happening. If you
are receptive you will be utterly satisfied by it. Your thirst will disappear. But if you
are only listening to the words and collecting the words, and proving, disproving,
agreeing, disagreeing -- then you are not here, you are not present; you are almost
absent. You may be physically here, but you are not psychologically here, not
spiritually here at all.
ONE DAY A DISCIPLE, WHO WAS BOTH INCAPABLE OF LEARNING ANA
REGULARLY DRIVEN ABNORMAL BY ATTENDING 'MYSTICAL
CEREMONIES', VISITED HIM.
Now this too has to be understood.
This matter of mystical experiences
Firstly, down the ages, all over the world, mystical ceremonies have existed. A
mystical ceremony is a ritual in which you start by pretending, and later on, by and by,
you are hypnotised by your own pretension. Slowly, slowly, the pretension becomes a
kind of auto-hypnosis.
For example, if you participate in a mystical ceremony, it will be a ritual in the
beginning. Rituals can be of many kinds -- every religion has its own. If you
participate in a mystical ceremony which is based on the idea of kundalini energy,
serpent-power, you have to first read about what kundalini is. Naturally you have to
become acquainted with what kundalini is so that you understand the physiology of
the kundalini. You read Gopi-Krishna and people like that. And you know that there
are many centres and there is a passage in the spine up which the energy rises. And
you know that it goes moving upwards, and where it reaches and what happens -- that
it finally reaches to the head and then your whole body is shaken, trembling, and there
is great light and there is great joy. These things you read. Naturally a great greed
arises in you to have these experiences. And suddenly you see that something is being
missed by you; that others are having great experiences and you are missing. That
creates a kind of jealousy, competition, greed, desire, longing.
Just a few years ago the pope of the Vatican announced that there were one hundred
and sixty-three kinds of sins. And immediately thousands of letters reached the
Vatican, saying, 'Please sir, give us the whole list' -- because many felt that they were
missing out. One hundred and sixty-three kinds of sins? You will also wonder what
you are missing. Maybe you are doing two, three, four, five -- at the most seven. But
one hundred and sixty-three? People are really having a good time. Many enquiries
arrived -- 'We would like to know what these one hundred and sixty-three sins are.'
People become intrigued when they see that somebody else is having something. A
great desire, a great wish arises.
So first you read about kundalini. You become suffused with the knowledge of the
centres, their colours, their mantras, their places in the physical body. You visualise
them. Then you participate in a ceremony. In the ceremony you see people whose
kundalini is rising. Somebody is getting very ecstatic, and you feel very, very deeply
depressed that you have never seen such beauty, such experiences. You sit there, you
visualise. People are swaying, people are enjoying, tears are flowing, their faces are
aglow. Sooner or later you also get into the ritual. You also start swaying. Man is very
imitative.
The spiritual seeker has to be very much alert about imitativeness.
First you start swaying, and you know that you are just doing it yourself. Sooner or
later you get into it. Your wish becomes a kind of wish-fulfilment, you auto-hypnotise
yourself. And there are many people; it is great hypnosis all around you. And you start
seeing light inside. Mind is very imaginative, it can imagine anything. And remember,
I am not saying kundalini is wrong; remember, I am not saying that light is not seen;
and I am not saying that there are no mystical experiences -- no, not in the least. I'm
not saying that. But out of a hundred people, ninety-nine go on creating them by
imagination -- and that is not true.
The real experience has nothing to do with your imagination. The real experience has
nothing to do with your knowledge about kundalini. The real experience has nothing
to do with the textbooks about kundalini. And the real experience is always unique. It
never happens in the same way to two persons. Those seven chakras are there, but
they are not at the same place in everyone. When you see a chart of kundalini it is just
a generalised chart. It is almost like.... Here there are one thousand people, and if
somebody asks for a man of average height -- the average height comes somewhere
around five feet five inches, or five feet five and a half inches, that is the average
height -- you can go on searching for him but you will not find him. Somebody will
be five six, somebody will be five-four, somebody will be five-seven. There will be
all kinds of people. The average is just a generalised form.
It happens exactly like that. There are seven chakras but they don't exist in the same
Places for all people. And there are experiences but they never happen in the same
way to two persons -- they happen very, very differently. So there is no need to know
the physiology of the kundalini, and there is no need to know the chakras, and there is
no need to know what happens finally -- because if you know it you will start
hypnotising yourself, and by and by you will start getting into the ritual. And you will
create a kind of dream around you. And when there are many people doing the same
thing, you tend to fall into the crowd-mind. You start swaying with the crowd.
Have you watched it sometimes -- how you fall into the crowd and become one with it?
A crowd, a crowd of Hindus, is going to burn a mosque. Or a crowd of
Mohammedans is going to destroy a temple. You are a Hindu and you go into the
Hindu crowd. You did not really think about burning the mosque, you had never
thought about it before, you are not that kind of man; you are not that destructive, not
that violent, aggressive. You are a... a nice person. You have never burned anything,
anybody. And when you joined the crowd you were not really thinking about doing
anything, you were just curious about where this crowd was going. You were just
intrigued about what was going to happen. You were just going there as a kind of
entertainment, with no idea in particular of doing anything.
Then by and by you get excited by the crowd -- these people rushing around you from
all sides, with such great energy, shouting slogans and protesting. Their energy
functions on you. Your energy starts being aroused. By and by you see that you are
getting excited. There is all this excitement around you -- how can you be aloof? You
become excited, and when you reach the mosque or the temple, and when people start
burning it, suddenly you find yourself doing things you had not planned. You are
burning the mosque or destroying the temple or killing a person.
People get carried away by the mass-mind.
Religion is your unique experience. It has nothing to do with the mass-mind. In the
mass you lose your identity, but you fall below. In religious experience you also lose
your identity, but you go above.
Let this sentence be remembered: religion is a pilgrimage, Sufis say, from
unconscious anonymity to conscious anonymity. From unconscious anonymity... that's
what happens in a crowd. You become anonymous, unconscious. You lose your ego
but you fall below the ego, you become animalistic. That's why it is said that more
crimes are committed by crowds than by single individuals.
Friedrich Nietzsche has said, 'Madness in individuals is a rare phenomenon but in
crowds it is the general rule.' It is very rare that people become mad individually, but
it is almost the rule that crowds become mad. The general excitement is just too much,
the fire of it is too much, you start burning with it -- and it is very unconscious. And
there is no responsibility any more and there is no problem of conscience -- you are
not killing somebody, the crowd is killing him. You are simply participating because
you were there. Nobody can catch hold of you and nobody can say to you that 'You
killed!' Hindus killed, Mohammedans killed, communists killed. You were not
individually responsible.
In a mystical ceremony the same happens. It is an exploitation of the crowd-mind.
Beware of it.
And about mystical experiences three things have to be remembered. There are three
kinds of spiritual experiences. One is pathological, neurotic, psychotic, hysterical. It
happens many times that a hysterical person can become a mahatma. He falls into
hysteria, foams, becomes unconscious, utters gibberish.... Do you know from where
the word 'gibberish' comes? It comes from a mystic named Gibhar, who used to utter
nonsense. From Gibhar the English word 'gibberish' has come. He would utter much
nonsense, with no meaning, but it was thought that he was a great mystic. He was
simply hysterical. In India you can find such hysterical people being worshipped.
They have to be treated; they are simply pathological.
If you are pathological, hysterical, sometimes in a mystical ceremony it happens that
you fall into hysteria, and people start thinking that you have gone into samadhi,
ecstasy or something and they start worshipping you. And when you come back and
you see people touching your feet, holding flowers and garlands and sweets for you...
now you have found a trick. Now you can exploit your hysteria. And you will also
start believing, because it is so nice to believe that you are becoming a spiritual person.
Now their worship will help you to become more pathological. Rather than thinking
that this is something wrong, you will think that something great is happening to you.
And one can go farther and farther into the mire.
Remember, in the East there are many pathological people who are thought to be
mahatmas. And in the West many real mystical people are put into mad asylums
because they are thought to be pathological. Both attitudes are wrong. That's why I
say this matter of spiritual experience is a delicate one. In the West there are many
mystical people who are in the hospitals being treated, being given electric shocks,
insulin shocks, because it is thought that they are hysterical.
Just think if Ramakrishna had been born in America. He would have been put into
some mad asylum because from the outside his mystical experiences looked almost
like hysteria -- he would fall unconscious, his body would become stiff, his mouth
would start foaming, his eyes would go up. All this is what happens in hysteria; it is a
fit.
This matter is delicate. If Ramakrishna had been in the West he would have been
treated. And they have devised such strong methods to treat people that there is every
possibility that they would have made Ramakrishna normal. But that would have been
a great misfortune.
In the East just the reverse is happening. I have come across many people. Sometimes
they would be brought to me with the idea that I would recognise their state. But I saw
that they were just hysterical people; this was just hysteria and nothing else. They
were neurotic; they needed some therapy. They had fallen below the normal. But to
fall below the normal or to go above the normal sometimes looks alike. Only a Master
can be decisive about it, otherwise it is very difficult to decide what is what. But there
are a few things which can be given to you as indications.
If it is pathological, the person will become more and more sad, dull, listless. If it is
pathological, the person will become more and more tense, anxious, worried. If it is
pathological, the person will become less and less attentive, will lose presence of
mind, will become uncreative. If it is pathological, the person's body will start
suffering in many ways. The person will not be of any creative value to the society if
it is pathological.
If it is not pathological, the person will have more life, more aliveness, more love,
more compassion, more intelligence, more presence of mind. The person will have a
glow. He will be drunk with the divine but his drunkenness will have a kind of
awareness in it. Utterly drunk and yet utterly aware -- that's how he will be. And he
will be creative. His being here on the earth will be beneficial to people.
So the first thing is the pathological. The second thing is the fake. There are fakes
who can perform. Seeing that it pays well you can become a performer. You can
pretend that something is happening to you. If you see that people come and touch
your feet and people think that you have arrived, why not pretend? It is good business.
You can start pretending.
Remember, mind is so cunning that it can go on being cunning in every possible way.
The third is the real. But there is one more complexity: sometimes if the real is not
under the right guidance he can fall and become pathological. And if the pathological
is under the right guidance sometimes it happens that the pathological can become
real. So there is further complexity. Sometimes it happens that the fake can become
pathological. He started by pretending, but by and by he got into it. Something
erupted in him, some energy source ruptured in him, and he became pathological. He
started on his own, deliberately, but one day he found that it was no longer deliberate;
it was beyond his control. And sometimes it can also happen that under the right
guidance, the fake can become the real -- because if the fake is made aware of what he
is doing, and if he is really in search and has chosen just a cheap way of performance,
under the guidance of a right Master he may drop his pseudo-ness and start moving
towards the real.
And the last thing, remember, the real can sometimes become fake -- because the
spiritual experience is such that it happens when it happens. For example, one day it
happens and suddenly you are in it, completely gone and lost, utterly blissful. Then
people start gathering around you, then people start gathering to see the mystical
experience. Then one day they are there and it is not happening. And now your whole
prestige is at stake. You can pretend, you can become fake.
So complexity becomes double or triple. Right guidance is needed, otherwise you can
fall into any trap of the mind.
ONE DAY A DISCIPLE, WHO WAS BOTH INCAPABLE OF LEARNING AND
REGULARLY DRIVEN ABNORMAL BY ATTENDING 'MYSTICAL
CEREMONIES', VISITED HIM.
HE ASKED, 'HOW CAN I BEST PROFIT FROM THE TEACHINGS OF THE
SAGES?'
Now look at the question: HOW CAN I BEST PROFIT...?
The idea is of profit, greed. The idea is to accumulate, the idea is to become more
powerful. The idea is not to dissolve, to disappear.
'HOW CAN I BEST PROFIT FROM THE TEACHINGS OF THE SAGES?'
And there is a misunderstanding -- because sages have no teachings. Sages have
messages but no teachings. advice but no teachings. Sages open the door to the
unknown, but don't supply you with any theories, philosophies, ideologies.
THE SUFI SAID, 'I AM HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO TELL YOU THAT I HAVE AN
INFALLIBLE METHOD WHICH CORRESPONDS TO YOUR CAPACITY.'
The man must have been happy. He asked,
'AND WHAT IS THAT, IF I AM ALLOWED TO HEAR IT?'
'SIMPLY STOP UP YOUR EARS AND THINK ABOUT RADISHES.'
Now you will be surprised about this method. Is the sage joking? Is he making the
man look foolish, ridiculous? No. The sage cannot do that. It is impossible in a state
of compassion. No, he is giving him a method, it looks absurd.
'SIMPLY STOP UP YOUR EARS AND THINK ABOUT RADISHES.'
But that is exactly what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has given to the West. It is a
Transcendental Meditation: 'Close your ears and think of radishes.' Anything can
become a mantra. That's why I say there is no need to repeat 'aum', there is no need to
repeat 'Allah'. You can repeat 'Coca-Cola'. That will do! And more so, because now
Coca-Cola has disappeared from India. There will be more desire for Coca-Cola than
for aum. Who bothers about Allah when Coke is missing? Or you can repeat your own
name -- that will do.
The great poet, Tennyson, has written in his memoirs that when he was a child,
sometimes his parents would not be at home and he would feel very afraid. So not
knowing what to do being alone, he would simply repeat his own name -- Tennyson,
Tennyson, Tennyson -- just to give him a feeling as if somebody was there, as if his
mother was calling him -- Tennyson -- or his father was there. Being so afraid and not
knowing what else to do he would repeat his name, and that would help him and
soothe him and he would fall asleep. So he found a Transcendental Meditation. And
by and by he entered into it, and that became his meditation for his whole life. So
whenever he would find any anxiety, any trouble, any fear arising, he would repeat his
name a few times and everything would cool down. Or whenever he would find that
he could not sleep, he would repeat his name and fall asleep.
Yes, it is possible -- because 'Allah' or 'Tennyson' or any word will do. The situation is
that if you repeat it, if you think only of it, all other thinking disappears. You become
focused. In that focusing you become silent. But this is the lowest kind of meditation.
The sage is not ridiculing the man; he is not laughing at the man.
'I AM HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO TELL YOU THAT I HAVE AN INFALLIBLE
METHOD WHICH CORRESPONDS TO YOUR CAPACITY.'
He's saying, 'This is where you are. More than that won't do. This will be enough for
you. You are very childish, juvenile. Just repeating a name or thinking of something
will do.'
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation is very juvenile; it is very childish; it is for the
beginners. Yes, it gives a kind of consolation, it helps to soothe you. It is just like a
tranquilliser. And for people who are in search of anything, in a very, very juvenile
way.... America in particular is in great search for something to hang on to, because all
that is available -- money, power -- has become meaningless. All has become
meaningless. They have everything; for the first time a society has become affluent.
All is there so there is no hope in it, and everybody is asking, 'What else? What now?'
So people are searching. And when people search and there is no long tradition, no
long continuity of search.... And America is one of the most childish societies too,
because it has existed on the earth for only three hundred years. It has no past to refer
to, no past in which to have a context, no SILSILA -- what Sufis call 'continuity of
spirituality'. It is the first urge. America is a kind of kindergarten land as far as
spirituality is concerned. So any person can go and any person can become a guru. It
is so easy to become a guru in America. People are searching for anything -- harmful,
meaningful, meaningless -- anything.
There are two gurus, the greatest gurus in America: Maharishi Hashish Yogi and
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. People are trying even hashish to attain to God. There is no
sense of direction.
This man must have been childish, juvenile. He had been to many mystical
ceremonies and many mystical teachers and he had been going from one school to
another and collecting a few bits of information from here, a few from there -- and
creating garbage inside his mind.
When the sage said, 'You simply stop up your ears and think about radishes,' he was
not joking. He was saying exactly what corresponded to this man's capacity. More
than that would not be applicable right then. More than that would be dangerous. He
had to be broken in to the world of spirituality from the point at where he was.
In America any kind of thing goes -- for the simple reason that people are in search
but they don't have any direction and they don't have any reference to the past. Their
parents have never searched for spirituality, their parents were in search of money.
Their parents were in search of money and they succeeded. And in that very success,
everything failed. Their parents had only one thing that was enough to keep them
drunk, and that was power. How to have a big house? How to have a big car? How to
have more money? -- more power. They were drunk with power. And they had only
one thing as their religion and that was work. Work is the American ethos. Work hard
so that you can achieve many things in the world. And they succeeded; unfortunately,
they succeeded. And now their children are at a loss. Now what? Money is there,
house is there, car is there, everything is there -- now it doesn't make any sense just to
rush after them when they are there. Why rush after them? They are already available.
Something else is needed. Anything will do. Sex will do. Psychedelics will do. Yoga
will do. Tantra will do. Anything will do. And any pretender can become a guru.
Listen to this....
A grey-haired lady climbed three flights of stairs, opened a carved mahogany door
and walked into an exotically furnished reception room. A gong sounded, and out of a
cloud of incense appeared a beautiful brunette Oriental.
'Do you,' she said softly, 'wish to meet with His Omnipotence, the wise, all-knowing,
all-seeing guru, Maharishi Naru?'
'Yeah,' said the elderly woman. 'Tell Irving his mama is here from the Bronx!'
It is happening. It is happening for a certain reason. People are in search and they
don't know what they are searching for. Any pretender can promise -- he can promise
rose gardens, can promise paradise -- and the promise will do. And Americans know
how to promise. They know how to advertise. They know how to persuade people to
purchase anything. In that they are one of the most skilled people. So now God has
become the commodity.
But unless you rise in your capacity to learn, unless you rise in your capacity to seek
and search, you can call your search a search for truth, but it will remain something
else.
This man was simply stupid, mediocre. unintelligent. He was wasting his time and
others' time. But he was collecting information from here and there, and he was
enjoying the ego that feels, 'I am becoming knowledgeable.' Now it was by chance
that he fortunately stumbled at the door of this sage. The sage said,
'SIMPLY STOP UP YOUR EARS AND THINK ABOUT RADISHES.'
'BEFORE, DURING OR AFTER THE LECTURES AND EXERCISES?'
'INSTEAD OF ATTENDING ANY OF THEM.'
I am reminded of a woman who went to her doctor. The doctor was very much
troubled by the woman. Every year she would give birth to a child. She already had
one dozen and now the thirteenth was coming. And the doctor said, 'Enough is enough!
Now you stop!'
The woman said, 'Now I am also thinking that it is becoming tiring. I am exhausted.
Will you suggest something for me that will prevent me from becoming pregnant?'
The doctor said, 'Yes. Drink a cup of hot water.'
The woman said, 'Before or after?'
The doctor said, 'Instead.'
'Neither before, during, or after the lectures and exercises. Drop all those exercises.
They are stupid. And drop all those lectures, they are meaningless. The first thing that
you have to do is to become a little more collected, calm. To close your ears will be
the best thing you can do. You have already allowed your ears to take in too much for
you to carry. You are already burdened.'
So 'close your ears' is simply symbolic. 'And don't gather any more information. It is
already too much, it is driving you mad!' Close your ears means: there is no need to
know about truth. To know about truth is not to know truth, so drop this going round
and round in circles, this going about and about. Close your ears. And, of course, he
says, 'just think of radishes.' Maybe the man has only that much capacity.
I have heard a Hindu parable....
A man came to a sage and asked what he should do. He was a simple man. The sage
asked, 'Do you love somebody?'
The man said, 'No, I am a poor man and, you can see, I am ugly too, so no woman
ever agreed to marry. I am unmarried. I am a bachelor. Nobody loves me.'
The sage says, 'Then it will be a little difficult. Still, you think.... Nobody loves you?
That's okay, but do you love somebody? Anything will do -- a tree, a dog -- anything.'
The man said, 'I love my buffalo.'
The sage said, 'That will do. You just go home and meditate on your buffalo. See God
in the form of the buffalo. Look at the buffalo and feel the divine -- because wherever
your love is, from exactly that point one has to proceed. Let the buffalo be the first
point of your journey, the departure point. The arrival will always be God, but the
departures will differ.'
Somebody loves nature, then that is the beginning of his meditation. Somebody loves
music, then that is the beginning of his meditation.
There are people who have no musical ear. If you tell them to make music their
meditation, it will be impossible, it will become a barrier. They will never arrive at
God. There are people who are completely dead about nature; nature has no appeal for
them. These immense colours all around -- this green and red and the leaves and the
foliage and the flowers, don't make any sense to them. They have not seen them. They
have no eye for it. They are blind as far as beauty is concerned. Then this cannot be
their door to the divine.
The advice is very practical. You have to start from where you are, there is no other
way to start. Everybody has to start in his own way, and as you grow, better
meditations will be given to you. Meditations have to be given according to your
capacity. As you start growing, more meditations -- higher, deeper -- will be given to
you. And the final stage is that when you have really grown Up, all meditations will
be taken away from you. The final stage of meditation is the disappearance of
meditation. When meditation has become perfect, you have to drop it. To cling to the
meditation at that moment will be the last barrier; you have to drop it too.
Meditation has to become one day so natural -- like breathing -- that you need not do
it, it is always there. It is a kind of presence around you, within, without. Asleep, you
are meditative; walking, you are meditative; talking, you are meditative; doing this
and that, you are meditative. Your meditation never leaves you, it has become your
shadow. Then a man has really become a meditator.
Remember this paradox: when meditation has arrived, it has to be dropped. And one
has to begin as one's capacity allows.
The Master said, 'The first thing is to stop hearing more about truth. You have already
heard much.'
The after-dinner speaker was boring and long-winded. One after another the guests
nodded off to sleep at their places. The exasperated and embarrassed master of
ceremonies frantically banged his gavel. In his wild banging he hit the snoring man
next to him on the head.
'Hit me again,' said the snorer, 'I can still hear the son of a bitch.'
The Master says, 'You have heard enough. You have read enough. You already know
more than you need. Close your ears. And your capacity is so low that whatsoever you
have heard you will go on misinterpreting. It will never be relevant, it will be always
irrelevant -- because your being is very low and your knowledge is very high. They
don't meet. Your being will interpret. Your knowledge will be interpreted by your
being and it will always be a corruption. It will always be irrelevant and out of context.
Maybe the man who was saying it had a context for it, or the book you read it in had a
context for it, but in you it will simply become a fragment floating -- unrelated to you,
unrooted in you. It will be a burden. It will not enlighten you. It will burden you more;
it will not unburden you.'
A man and his wife were standing in front of the gorilla cage at the zoo. Suddenly, the
gorilla reached through the bars, pulled the woman into his cage and started to rip off
her clothes.
She screamed, 'Herman, what do I do now?'
Herman shrugged his shoulders and replied, 'Tell him you have a headache, dear.'
One thing may be relevant in one context. It is not relevant in all contexts. But the
context comes from your being. So never know more than you are. Be more, know
less, and you will always be moving in the right direction. Know a little, but do it,
absorb it, digest it -- otherwise knowledge can become a kind of indigestion. It can
create nausea. You will have to vomit it.
Eat a little, but let it be digested so it becomes blood, bones and marrow.
Sufis are very practical people, very down-to-earth. The sage must have looked into
the man and seen that his capacity was very poor. If he had to be helped, he had to
start from there. It is not insulting. The sage is not ridiculing. It is out of his
compassion that he says, 'You do two things. One is: stop gathering knowledge -- no
more. In fact, unlearn all that you have learned. Close your ears and think of
something that you like. Think of something that you love. Think of something with
which you can fall en rapport, whatsoever it is. That will be the first glimpse of God
in your being. And the journey starts from there.